I Love You and I Might Not Like You: Metta as Liberatory Practice

Everyone knows there’s a difference between ‘I love you’ and 'I like you’. It can feel threatening when someone tells us they don’t like us (what we are doing, saying, etc). And it can be powerful when they say ‘I love you’. Either way, for someone like me (white, privileged, he/him, hetero) my learned fragility might make me recoil or shut-down when met with the loving-challenge to look at my own internalized bias, supremacy, and ignorance. How might the contemplative practice of the Four Immeasurables help me face what I (and others) don’t like about my attitude? And help me receive love that is true, unconditionally, and liberatory.

David Perrin is a meditation teacher and mentor in the Shambhala tradition. David is a MNDFL Lead Teacher and Director of the MNDFL Teacher Training, core faculty at the Institute for Compassionate Leadership, and Co-Director of the Teaching Mindfulness Training with Dr. Shanté Smalls and Ethan Nichtern. He is also a Licensed Creative Arts Psychotherapist. David serves as a Trustee at the Perrin Family Foundation supporting youth social justice projects in Connecticut. He is committed to anti-racism and anti-oppression in meditation centers, social institutions, and in his own practice. David lives in New York City with partner Anne Kenan, and their three children. For more information about David, you can visit his website www.davidbperrin.com.