Lovingkindness Meditation and Navigating Harm: a Community-Engaged Qualitative Study with Diverse Meditators during COVID-19

Objectives: Inclusive research is needed to understand how contemplative practices are used by people across a range of identities. Lovingkindness meditation (LKM) may be particularly relevant for people to committed to equity and justice because of the social nature of the practice. Using community-based participatory research and an intersectional framework, this qualitative study focuses on how people in a diverse meditation community teach and practice lovingkindness or metta meditation.Methods: In partnership between university researchers and a community-based meditation center, we conducted virtual focus groups on experiences with lovingkindness meditation during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze focus group data, with a member checking process.

Results: 47 people participated in 6 focus groups (mean age 47; 62% LGBTQ+; 32% white, 23% Asian, 19% Black, 13% Hispanic/Latina/o, 24% multi-racial). Qualitative analysis revealed two central themes: (1) The use of skillful means to support diverse meditators’ participation in a community of practice, including adaptation to virtual-only formats during COVID-19; (2) Meditators’ use of metta to navigate harmful situations, both individual stressors and systems of oppression.

Conclusions: Diverse participants in a meditation community found lovingkindness practice supportive for coping with the stress of microaggressions and structural oppression. They utilized LKM to navigate hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, offer compassion to themselves and others, and cultivate the ability to hold multiple difficult emotions. Community-engaged approaches to meditation research are feasible during the COVID-19 pandemic and other times of crisis and should be used more widely.