Maitri (Sanskrit; in Pali, metta) is usually translated as loving-kindness or benevolence. Both translations are accurate and both are slightly misleading, because they make it sound like a feeling you're supposed to have. Maitri is better understood as a practice: the deliberate, repeatable act of relating to yourself — and then to others — as a friend would. Not as a fan, not as a critic. A friend.
It is the first of the four brahmaviharas, the "divine abodes" of Buddhist and broader Indian contemplative tradition: loving-kindness (maitri), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha). The order is not random. The tradition holds that the other three stand on the first: you cannot reliably offer compassion, joy, or steadiness to others if the person doing the offering is someone you treat like an enemy.
Why start with yourself
In the classic loving-kindness sequence — which you can try in our loving-kindness meditation guide — the first recipient of goodwill is you. Only after that does the circle widen: a benefactor, a neutral person, a difficult person, all beings. Modern readers sometimes bristle at this. Shouldn't kindness start with others? Isn't self-directed kindness just self-esteem culture in Sanskrit?
The traditional answer is practical rather than sentimental. You are the person you spend every minute with. If that relationship is hostile — if your inner commentary runs on contempt — then hostility is the resource you draw from all day, whatever your intentions. Maitri practice begins with yourself the way flight safety begins with your own oxygen mask: not out of selfishness, but because you're the delivery system.
A skill, not a mood
The crucial point, and the one that makes maitri worth a page on a practical site like this one: friendliness toward yourself is trainable. It is not a personality trait you either have or lack, and it is definitely not a feeling you wait for. The practice is mechanical at first. You sit, you bring yourself to mind, and you offer phrases — "may I be well, may I be at ease" — the way you'd offer a seat to a guest. Some days it feels warm. Most days, at the start, it feels like reading a script. That's fine. The repetition is the practice; warmth is a side effect that arrives on its own schedule.
Notice what happens in the mind when you try it. For many people, offering kindness to themselves immediately produces its opposite: a list of reasons they don't deserve it, finished and unfinished. That reaction is not a failure of the practice. That reaction is the material the practice works with. You notice the harshness, and you don't argue with it, and you offer the phrase again. This is what training looks like.
What maitri is not
- Not self-indulgence. A good friend doesn't let you lie on the couch forever; a good friend tells you the truth kindly and expects you to get up. Maitri includes the honest voice, not just the soft one.
- Not positive thinking. Nothing in the practice requires denying that things are hard or that you've made a mess. Friendliness toward someone includes seeing them clearly — that's what makes it friendship rather than flattery.
- Not a performance. Nobody is watching. If the phrases feel fake, say them flatter. Sincerity can't be forced; it grows from repetition the way strength grows from reps.
- Not instant. Like abhyasa — steady practice over time — maitri works in months, not minutes. The measure is not how you feel during the sit but how you talk to yourself at 4 p.m. on a bad Thursday.
Maitri on the mat
Asana practice is where self-friendliness stops being abstract, because the mat provides hourly opportunities to observe how you actually treat yourself. Watch your reaction when a balance wobbles, when a pose your neighbor does easily is closed to you, when the body says no. The tone of that internal moment — contempt, amusement, patience — is your maitri report card.
Practical application looks like this: you come into child's pose mid-class not as surrender but as self-respect. You back out of a depth that's producing pain, and the narration is "good call," not "weak." You try the hard variation, fall, and laugh instead of curse. None of this lowers standards. It changes the fuel from self-punishment to something you can actually run on for decades. People who practice from self-contempt quit or get injured; people who practice from friendliness keep showing up. That's the whole secret.
A two-minute start
Sit comfortably. Rest a hand somewhere neutral — thigh, chest. Bring to mind the plain fact that you, like everyone, would prefer to be okay. Offer three phrases, slowly: May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I live with ease. When the mind objects — and it will — notice the objection, and return to the phrases. Two minutes, daily, for a month. Then notice how you speak to yourself when you drop something, forget something, fail at something. That noticing is maitri beginning to work.
Maitri is not thinking well of yourself. It is treating yourself as someone worth practicing with — because you are the one you practice with, every time.