Hello, thanks for listening to this Darma podcast. I hope you consider that in accordance

with the Buddhist tradition all of my work is a teacher is offered without charge and supported

entirely by donations only. If you'd like to support this work, you'll find a paypal button on

darmapunk's NYC.com.

Perhaps one of the most important sutas of the Buddha is the meta-suta.

Meta means unconditional friendliness or loving kindness.

There's so many different translations.

It's basically the emotionally empathetic value of greeting others without prejudgment,

openness to others. and the Buddha and the meta-Suta starts out by saying

that one who practices goodwill will sleep easily and wake easily and they'll dream pleasant dreams.

The angels will protect them. Their minds will be serene and their complexions will be

bright.

Now that sounds like rather exorbitant promises to give for

practicing a meditation where one simply wishes others well-being and yet clinical

studies have shown that when people do practice meta it actually lowers stress, blood pressure enhances

their function of their immune system, reduces anxiety and results very often in increased well-being.

So that's pretty incredible, right?

That this simple meditation can,

the simple meditation can actually have such benefits.

So in fact if you'd like to read more about this great clinical psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, very important

psychologist wrote a book called Love 2.0 where she covers the benefits of Meta.

But for tonight's talk is more about, while Meta has certain biomedical positive implications, a lot of its benefits are of course

...