Meditation on Kindness, Metta Bhavana is a means of generating thoughts of kindness. Now when we develop this practice of kindness, we must encompass all beings wherever they are to our frame - work of kind thoughts. In order to achieve this, we must establish a foundation on which we build these kind thoughts. Unless a foundation is well established, our process of thought will not become meaningful. Therefore our, greater emphasis and effort should be to establish this foundation.

First and foremost we can classify all living beings, wherever they are, whatever is the world they belong to, in to four classes. They are,

(a) Oneself
There is no one else in this class.
(b) Those who are dear to you.
The beings to whom you have some affinity, love, or respect.
(c) Beings who are neutral to you.
Beings towards whom you have neither aversion nor affinity. A large number of beings fall into this category.
(d) Beings towards whom you have an aversion to or some one who has been causing some pain or harassment to you.

Any beings other than oneself can be categorized into one of these three letter classes. In generating thoughts of kindness we must cover all four categories, going step by step from one category to the other. In this manner we develop this foundation.