Both Right and Wrong Meditation

Devadatta possessed great talents and could achieve anything to which he turned his mind. He used to sit day after day in a small cave at the foot of the hills near Rajahaha (India), practicing meditation, and very soon he acquired complete proficiency in concentration, being able at will to direct his thought wherever he wished and hold it there. But there is both right and wrong meditation. [The Buddha] often told [the Sangha] that we should commence meditation with thoughts of loving friendship, first directed towards our own minds and bodies, so that we do not injure them with thoughts of worry, lust, malevolence, or anger, then direct towards the circle of our near acquaintances, suffusing them with the selfless love of a mother for her only child. Finally, he said, we should suffuse the whole wide world with thoughts of all-embracing love above, below, around. Then, and not until then, should we start to direct our thoughts towards [an object of meditation] suited to our temperament.

Yasa (a disciple of The Buddha)
from Footprints of Gautama The Buddha