St. Valentine’s day originally commemorated the death on February 14 of a third century Roman clergyman who was kind to Christian martyrs. Over the centuries, it has become a day of gifts, dinners, chocolate hearts, and celebrating romantic love for many people. When we say the word “love,” this is often what is envisioned.

What would happen if we decided to greatly expand our celebration of love to include a more impartial and all-encompassing affection, kindness, or compassion? Certainly, we are asked to do this by many faith traditions and even in the ethical precepts taken by most health care professions. There is the Christian commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This is taking that love to a new level, because now we are trying to hold other individuals with the same care that we have for ourselves. This precept assumes that we care about and take care of ourselves, which is not always the case.

One path to developing a more inclusive type of love is through the Buddhist practice of metta meditation. The word metta, from the ancient Pali language, can be translated to mean “impartial friendliness” or “loving kindness.” Metta meditation is a way to train our minds to have love and kindness be our first response, both to ourselves and to all others, without exception. This is a tall order, and thus takes some practice.

We can start by sitting in a comfortable and quiet place. Bringing our focus to our hearts, we take some time to wish ourselves well, repeating to ourselves “May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I live in peace.” We can use this traditional language, or whatever phrases work. Sometimes it is helpful to bring to mind someone who cares for us unconditionally and imagine that person’s wishes for us to be well.

We can then practice wishing happiness and health to others, starting with people (or animals) with whom we are close. We picture this person or animal receiving our good wishes: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you live in peace.” An important distinction to be made about this practice is that we don’t assume our wishes will have an effect on the other person. This is just about training our own minds to have kindness and well-wishing as a first response.

We can continue to practice this way, moving to a “neutral person” who might be someone we have seen but don’t really know. This person or animal could be a neighbor, a clerk, or even a squirrel who lives in our yard. The neutral person represents all beings, and gives us a chance to practice having kind thoughts toward those we don’t know well.

The most challenging practice is to think of someone with whom you have difficulty or conflict and to practice wishing this person happiness, health, and peace. If you feel this is too hard, try seeing this person as a young child. It sometimes helps to just wish them peace. If possible, watch your own resistance to wishing the person well—it helps us to examine why we wouldn’t want someone to be happy or healthy. What are our fears? Are they realistic?

We can close our practice with a wish that all beings, without exception, find happiness, safety, and peace. Metta practice can be done informally while carrying out our daily lives. We can wish the other drivers health and safety. We can wish the people in line at the grocery store good health. We can find opportunities to practice watching or reading the news, taking a moment to wish those who are suffering some relief. You may find yourself being a little more patient with others and with yourself as a result of this practice. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful Valentine?

Paula and Tony Seikel are members of the Portneuf Valley Interfaith Fellowship and organizers of the Portneuf Sangha and Meditation Center in Pocatello.