Peace Pilgrim describes how her prayer for peace evolved over time:
In the beginning I undertook my walking…as a prayer discipline to keep me concentrated on my prayer for peace. After the first few years the prayer discipline was completely unnecessary, because I had learned to pray without ceasing. I made the contact so thoroughly that into my prayer consciousness I put any condition or person in the world I am concerned about and the rest takes place automatically.
While she used the words “prayer” and “peace” to describe her own practice—and while I have not attained the depths of practice she described here myself—the same or a similar shift is possible for the Path of Love as well.
The Karaniya Mettā Sutra describes it like this:
Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child,
So should one protect the boundless heart that loves all beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world: spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths; outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
Radiating Love Constantly Towards All Beings In All Places and Times - Tasshin
Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Buddha's Words on Loving-kindness
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