Answering Doubts About Mettā: Lust, Selfishness, Liberation of Mind and the Perfection of Mettā

What should I do if lust arises when I develop mettā?

Developing mettā (loving-kindness) lies close to rāga (lust).
At first, someone prone to lust must not direct mettā to the opposite sex.
While the mind is not yet strong, it will turn into lust; develop mettā for yourself first, until it becomes true mettā.
True mettā feels love, goodwill and care.
False mettā wants others to satisfy its own wants.
False mettā wants pleasant vedanā (feeling), but true mettā wants your own stream of life to truly reach mettā.
When you develop false mettā toward the opposite sex,
vitakka (applied thought) goes to work, lifting the mind onto the object;
vicāra (sustained thought) lingers over it, thinking of them; adhimokkha (decision) judges: so beautiful, so good;
viriya (effort) strives to make lust arise;
samādhi (concentration) settles on the object that arouses lust.
Lust is mettā’s near enemy: be careful.

Lust comes in the guise of a friend: be careful.
The way to train is to develop mettā for the elder monks, teachers and parents whom we respect.
Lust disappears at once, and we see that true mettā is love and goodwill, care, respect, gladness and happiness of heart, a mind gentle and soft.

If developing mettā makes me gentle and quick to trust people, won’t I be easily deceived?

Mettā does not mean having no wisdom to lead the way.
Someone who develops mettā is gentle, not weak;
strong of mind, but not hard;
the mind has great power, with the wisdom to read every situation.

When mettā arises in the mind, you can see people’s defilements: this one has lust, this one has aversion, this one has delusion, this one is sincere or not.
But the weakness comes when things get switched, between mettā and taṇhā (craving), between mettā and diṭṭhi (views).
You feel that since you practice the Dhamma, you must be nice to everyone and must give in to everyone,
and you become weak in mind.

But mettā is adosa (non-aversion): when non-anger arises, khanti (patience) arises too.
Patience has as its proximate cause the wisdom that sees things as they really are.
So wisdom keeps examining and discerning, and knows how to deal with this person.
You read the situation; you can see through anyone who comes to deceive you.
You set up a compassionate mind and do not simply indulge them,
because you do not want them to meet great misfortune,
you do not want them to do the evil of deceiving a person of virtue.
You protect them from harm,
and you protect yourself from harm too.

How is mettā for yourself different from selfishness, for example when coming to practice means taking leave from work and whoever covers for us has a hard time?

Coming to practice the Dhamma is not, in truth, called selfishness.
Selfishness is wanting to shirk, wanting not to work, and not wanting to come and practice either: wanting to go on a trip, wanting to go and rest, wanting to go and feed craving, māna (conceit) and views.
That is what is called selfishness.

But in coming to practice the Dhamma, we want to come and remove selfishness, to truly train and develop ourselves.
Selfish people do not want to come and practice, because it does not give craving what it wants.
Craving wants good food, good clothes, good surroundings; it wants to pamper the self.
When we come to practice, we come to refine ourselves, to remove defilements, to remove craving, conceit and views.
We must train ourselves, not letting wanting take charge.
We must reflect so that wisdom arises; the training is not easy at all.

Why can people who do not develop mettā not realize the Dhamma?

The emphasis is on adosa.
Mettā, as a mental factor, is adosa,
the same mental factor as khanti.

Mettā is also khanti-saṃvara (restraint through patience).
Without restraint through patience,
which is the meeting hall of all wholesome states,
wholesome states cannot be established.

Sīla (virtue) cannot become strong and stable
without non-aversion, that is, patience and mettā;
concentration cannot become stable and firm;
even the noble paths, which are to come together and arise,
must depend on non-aversion, that is, on this patience or mettā.

Mettā is not a factor of the path, but it is the meeting hall of the noble path.
So a person cannot realize the Dhamma without this state.

How is mettā-appamaññā different from mettā-cetovimutti?

Mettā-appamaññā

Mettā-appamaññā (boundless mettā) is developing mettā with a stillness so firm that it reaches appanā-samādhi (absorption concentration): a mind in jhāna (meditative absorption), spreading without bounds, without measure, without choosing, without singling anyone out.

Mettā-cetovimutti

It is the name for one who has developed mettā until attaining jhāna: the first, second and third jhāna.
Once jhāna is attained, it is called mettā-cetovimutti (liberation of mind through mettā),
because the mind is released from all five nīvaraṇa (hindrances) by the power of the first jhāna,
released from vitakka and vicāra by the power of the second jhāna,
released from pīti (rapture) by the power of the third jhāna.
(It is mettā-jhāna seen from the angle of release.)

Cetovimutti pairs with the word paññāvimutti.
Cetovimutti means release through the power of the mind, that is, samatha (calm);
paññāvimutti means release through the power of wisdom, that is, vipassanā (insight).

Ordinary mettā-cetovimutti, and mettā-cetovimutti that is unshakable.
Ordinary mettā-cetovimutti indicates that one has attained mettā-jhāna and that the jhāna has not yet declined. But if, having attained jhāna, one goes on developing jhāna and insight knowledge until realizing the noble path and noble fruit, that is called attaining mettā-cetovimutti, and the defilements no longer stir, because they have been abandoned once and for all.

How do mettā as a brahmavihāra, mettā in the sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna, and mettā in the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta differ?

Sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna

The sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna (meditation useful everywhere), or by its original name caturārakkha-kammaṭṭhāna (the four protective meditations), is a meditation that protects.
It is mettā developed in every activity of life.
This means there must be mettā in bodily action, mettā in speech, mettā in thought,
and a mind that goes with mettā,
to block aversion from gaining influence.
When you go on to develop mettā as a brahmavihāra (divine abiding),
the mind will be strong and able to develop all the way to absorption concentration.

Mettā-brahmavihāra

It is a pārihāriya-kammaṭṭhāna (meditation to be tended continually),
a meditation that must be looked after without a break, continuously,
to reach absorption concentration.

The Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta

It is a meditation the Buddha taught himself,
found in the Sutta Piṭaka, Khuddaka Nikāya, Khuddakapāṭha.

The sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna and mettā-brahmavihāra
are meditations found in the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification),
at the level of the commentaries, 900 years after the Buddha’s parinibbāna (final passing away),
which the commentators drew from the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta and the Sutta Piṭaka,
brought together into a system, with the meditations newly classified,
so as to be more refined, broader, and better suited to people of later ages.

The wording differs: the Visuddhimagga uses the words

Ahaṃ sukhito homi, ahaṃ avero homi.
May I be happy; may I be free of enmity.

while the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta uses the words

Sukhino vā khemino hontu, sabbe sattā bhavantu sukhitattā.
May all beings be happy and secure; may all beings be happy at heart.

These are summed up in the words: happy in body, happy in mind, and safe.

How is mettā-pāramī different from mettā as a brahmavihāra?

Mettā-pāramī

Mettā-pāramī (the perfection of mettā) is the way of life of the Bodhisatta (the Buddha-to-be),
the Bodhisatta’s sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna,
one of the ten pāramī (perfections).

The underlying factor of the perfection of mettā
is the very same as that of mettā-brahmavihāra,
but more intense.

From training in mettā through khaṇika-samādhi (momentary concentration), upacāra-samādhi (access concentration) and absorption concentration, until it becomes part of his very being,
until he has an overflowing power of mettā,
it is the Bodhisatta’s disposition, as he goes about his life,
to spread a mind of mettā to all beings.

Not only sitting and spreading mettā.

In real life …
the Bodhisatta must have mettā in bodily action, mettā in speech, mettā in thought,
driven by sammā-saṅkappa (right intention):
a mind free of sensuality, free of ill will, free of harming.
It is a disposition he must train:
having mettā toward all beings,
of every kind, without favor, mettā for creatures of every sort,
until he can break down the boundaries, without measure.

In short,
mettā-brahmavihāra emphasizes absorption concentration; it is mettā-jhāna in the truest sense, called “appamaññā” (the boundless).

But the perfection of mettā can be access concentration or momentary concentration,
practicing mettā in bodily action, speech and thought toward all beings,
with absorbed mettā as a wall behind it, as the driving force.

So he is not shaken, not daunted, when facing all kinds of events,
and he does not rest in jhāna alone: insight knowledge supports it,
so he knows mettā as not a being or a person, but merely a natural state.

The elephant Nāḷāgiri

Devadatta plotted to harm the Buddha, so he got the fierce elephant Nāḷāgiri drunk on sixteen jars of liquor until it went mad, and then let it loose on the road where the Buddha walked on his alms round.

Then the Blessed One spread a mind of mettā to Nāḷāgiri. Touched by the Blessed One’s mind of mettā, Nāḷāgiri’s heart grew gentle.