Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, I want to talk about loving kindness in real life, especially while you're traveling. So I recently went on a road trip across the United States, which was a lot of fun, something I've wanted to do my whole life. And on a road trip, you have a lot of time in the car alone. At least in this case, I was alone.

And there were a lot of like, really open roads where I didn't see many cars, but a lot of the time there were a lot of people passing by. People I'd see on the side of the road, you know, going through cities and towns and cars driving by me. And I found it to be a really great opportunity for meditation practice. Obviously it can't be done with the eyes closed and sitting cross-legged. But if we think of meditation as an intentional awareness practice, where moment to moment we're practicing being present, attuned to what's going on in our minds, being on the road, on the open road is a great opportunity to do that because there's a certain mundane nature to it, especially on these really long stretches where you can get into a rhythm.

And I really liked practicing loving kindness meditation, which involves using phrases, as you're aware of that. We've done different meditations here on Mindfulness.com, where you're sending wishes of wellbeing to people. May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be healthy.

And so I find it's a great practice to do while I'm driving. A car will drive by. Maybe they'll be cutting me off or something. But I'll just say, may you be happy. Another car will drive by, may you be safe.

And I'm using each of these as little triggers for a certain way of relating to them, but also the moment that is aligned with cultivating certain qualities in my heart, in this case, compassion, empathy, love, and care. And it's something I want to offer you as well as something you can do while you're driving, but it can also be done in many different areas of your life. While you're going for a walk and you see people or you see insects or animals, all of these can be opportunities to cultivate a certain quality of mind. And in this case, a certain quality of heart where you can say, may you be happy, may you be safe. When I'm driving, I sometimes like to imagine that my whole car is just emitting this bubble of loving kindness.

And so wherever I'm driving, everything is enveloped in it. The people maybe on the side of the road, the cars that are around me, and the animals that might be there, the trees. And so I just feel like I'm this bubble of loving kindness, driving through the landscape. I also like to do that when I'm walking. You can figure out your own practice, but I think it's really important for us to find ways to take what we might do on our meditation cushion into our real life.

And when we view meditation for what it is, separate from sitting cross-legged on a cushion, and more of this intentional way of training our mind and relating to our experience in a different intentional way, then every moment can become an opportunity for meditation. And especially those moments where we're in the car and just long stretches without distraction can be really useful opportunities. So try it out and see if it works for you. That's something I really enjoy. And if you happen to drive by me somewhere in the United States, I'll be sure to send you some loving kindness.

Thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.