A damp grey Monday morning outside and the warmth of the Sangha and colour of the mandala in our shrine room.

Today we're exploring metta in the brahma vihara realm and allowing Aksobhya's qualities to draw us.

We did metta exercises in pairs, looking at each other with metta, and describing ourselves as our best friend would, then Ratnavandana gave a lovely short introduction to the metta bhavana which she led. She talked about not 'doing' the practice - it's not your metta, we're creating conditions for metta to flow. Metta isn't a particular experience, it's a way of relating to all our experience.

This afternoon we'll do a puja to Aksobhya.