Loving-Kindness Meditation Script: A 10-Minute Guided Practice You Can Read Aloud

This is a complete loving-kindness meditation script you can read silently, record on your phone, or read aloud to a group. It takes about ten minutes. Pause at each line break and let the words settle before moving on.

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Before you begin

Find a place where you can sit for ten minutes without interruption. A chair is fine. If you are leading a group, read about half as fast as feels natural.

The script

Arriving (1 minute)

Sit comfortably, upright but relaxed.
Let your eyes close, or rest your gaze on the floor.
Take three slow breaths. Let each out-breath be a little longer.
Notice how you are arriving today. Nothing needs to change.

Yourself (2 minutes)

Bring your attention to the center of your chest.
Silently, offer yourself these wishes:
May I be happy.
May I be well.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
Say them again, slowly. If they feel strange, that is all right. The wish is enough.

Someone who has been kind to you (2 minutes)

Picture someone who has helped you: a parent, a teacher, a friend.
See their face. Offer them the same wishes:
May you be happy.
May you be well.
May you be safe.
May you be peaceful and at ease.

Someone neutral (1 minute)

Now picture someone you barely know: a neighbor, a cashier, a person on your commute.
They want to be happy, just as you do.
May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease.

Someone difficult (2 minutes)

If you feel ready, picture someone you find difficult. Start with someone only mildly difficult.
You do not have to approve of them. Just wish them well, as far as you honestly can:
May you be happy. May you be well. May you be safe. May you be peaceful and at ease.
If this feels like too much, return to the kind person for a moment, then try again.

Everyone (1 minute)

Let the wish widen beyond the people you know, to everyone in this town, this country, the whole world.
May all beings be happy.
Rest here for a few breaths.

Closing (1 minute)

Let the words go. Notice how you feel now, without judging it.
Take one slow breath.
When you are ready, open your eyes, and carry one kind wish into the rest of your day.

The phrases in this script are ANEW's adaptation of common modern wording, not a quotation from scripture.

Where this practice comes from

Loving-kindness, mettā in Pāli, goes back to the Metta Sutta (Snp 1.8), the Discourse on Love. Its central wish is "May all beings be happy!", and its best-known image asks us to care for all creatures "even as a mother would protect with her life her child, her only child." For the phrases, a shorter 5-minute version and the original Pāli, see our guide to metta meditation.