Answering Doubts in the Practice of Mettā Meditation

Once a mind of mettā (loving-kindness) has arisen, do not stop there; keep developing it,
making it ever more refined and ever more powerful.

Feeling that you want mettā to arise, and being glad when it does: is that craving?

Mettā has a near enemy and a far enemy.
Love that is rāga (lust): passion, delight, or wanting.
We “want to get mettā.”

Wanting with taṇhā (craving), with a sense of self;
wanting the pleasant vedanā (feeling) that mettā brings;
wanting the result, but not wanting to make its causes;
and when you practice, you end up stressed, troubled and suffering:
…this is craving.

But true mettā aspires to reach the benefits of mettā;
you are happy from what you do,
happy from the moment you begin making the causes;
while you train you are very happy, happy at every step:
…this is chanda (wholesome desire, zeal).

What if I practice mettā and feel nothing, not moved, not refreshed at all?

The reason you feel nothing, no happiness, when you practice mettā
is that you are not refined, not gentle and attentive with yourself; you do not take in the details.
You have grown used to doing things out of craving,
grown used to acting from diṭṭhi (views) and māna (conceit),
unable to tell what is kusala (wholesome) from what is akusala (unwholesome).
This is a lack of refinement in the way you live.

Train yourself to be refined and attentive; do not be coarse.
Use mindfulness to pick out the good you have done and examine it, and you will see that, in truth, there is something lovable in you, something that lets you feel love for yourself.

The voice that scolds us does us a service; the voice that praises us does us a service.
If we look until we find it, look until we see it, we will see a great many who have helped us, not only those who treat us well.
Even people who treat us badly, and so become the reason we are heedful, the reason we are diligent, the reason we make an effort…

See the good in all things.
…this is called manasikāra (wise attention), and it gives us the courage to love everyone.

When mettā arises, the mind becomes refined and thinks deeply,
like still, clear water in which you can see your own reflection clearly.

We cannot see our own faults or our own goodness
because the mind is stirred up, because of the nīvaraṇa (hindrances).

• Kāmacchanda (sensual desire) is like water mixed with dye: looking at your reflection, you see neither the good nor the bad.
• Dosa (aversion), anger, is like water boiling on the stove: you look at your reflection and cannot see it, not clearly.
• Dejection and discouragement weighing you down are like water covered with duckweed: you cannot see your reflection clearly.
• Restlessness and worry crowding in are like water rippled by the wind: you cannot see your reflection clearly.
• Doubt and indecision are like water in a muddy vessel set in the dark: you cannot see anything of your reflection at all.

Be like clean water in a vessel set down still in the open light: you will see your own faults and your own goodness clearly.

When I am stressed or anxious, how do I bring my mind back to practicing mettā?

Defilements are like excrement: it is as if we poured excrement over ourselves and then refused to wash.
It is unwise to let the filth of defilement arise in our lives. Pouring excrement over ourselves is still less filthy than putting aversion into our hearts. It stinks and it clutters; see it as filth to be let go of at once. Do not delight in anger, and do not use anger to get through life.

We think that once we get angry, others will defer to us.
This way of thinking is wrong; it plants a wrong view.

…when you are stressed or anxious, let it go at once.

Why is it that sometimes I reach gentleness and softness, or concentration, and then when something jars me it is like a needle pricking a balloon: the air is gone, as if my protection has vanished?

Someone who once had the strength of samādhi (concentration) but has no skillful way to keep up its causes and conditions longs for it when it fades; and once they long for it and want it back, that becomes craving: wanting the result without making the causes.

So understand this:
mettā and aversion alike arise, remain, and pass away.
Rising anicca (impermanence) means a little mettā that has arisen can be made to grow much greater; but when we stop supplying its causes and conditions, it becomes falling impermanence: it slowly fades, and aversion or other unwholesome states slip in.

If mettā is about to fade, do not worry.
Our duty is to supply its causes and conditions.
If mettā arises and concentration arises and we are busy enjoying the result instead of developing it further, and so fail to develop it any wider, that is called heedlessness.

Developing mettā is not like ānāpānasati (mindfulness of breathing).
Mindfulness of breathing can be developed only in the sitting posture:
you must sit cross-legged, body upright, mindfulness firmly established.
But mettā meditation can be developed in every posture:
standing, walking, sitting, lying down, and in all the small movements in between.
It is one of the four parts of the sabbatthaka-kammaṭṭhāna (meditation useful everywhere).

We must develop mettā so that our minds become cool and calm, seeing all beings as companions in birth, aging, sickness and death.

Mindfulness that arises continuously,
mettā, concentration and wisdom that arise continuously,
can drive away drowsiness
and can be developed into the brahmavihāra (divine abidings).

How does mettā fit into the Four Noble Truths?

Mettā is adosa: non-aversion, not being angry.
The state of mind that goes with mettā belongs to the saṅkhārakkhandha (aggregate of mental formations).

All mettā that is still lokiya (mundane) counts as dukkha-sacca (the truth of suffering),
to be fully understood, to be fully known.
The states that arise together with mettā,
whether the aggregate of feeling, of perception or of mental formations,
and even the mind itself, are the truth of suffering too, likewise to be fully understood and fully known.

The stream of aggregates made of mahābhūta-rūpa (the great elements) and upādāya-rūpa (derived matter),
on which that mettā depends,
is the truth of suffering too, to be fully understood and fully known.

Craving in the past is the front line, the cause that makes mettā arise.
This means that because of the craving that arose in us in the past, we had to be born, and so we have eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness: that is samudaya-sacca (the truth of the origin of suffering), the cause of suffering, to be abandoned, to be destroyed.

(When we speak of craving as the front line, behind it there are also avijjā (ignorance), upādāna (clinging) and all the defilements, and all of them count as the truth of the origin.)

When you develop mettā, do not let craving delight in mettā itself, thinking “I am someone with mettā,” because that means
we are making new craving arise,
we are creating the origin of suffering all over again!!

The state where craving ceases and the truth of suffering ceases
means nibbāna, where the five khandha (aggregates) will never arise again;
even mettā ceases without remainder: this is nirodha-sacca (the truth of cessation).

Practicing the four satipaṭṭhāna (foundations of mindfulness), the four right efforts, the four bases of success, the five faculties, the five powers, the seven factors of awakening and the Noble Eightfold Path, and above all having sammā-diṭṭhi (right view) and sammā-saṅkappa (right intention), which are the causes that make mettā arise, is making the path at its beginning: the pubbabhāga (preliminary part) of the path.
Only when the Noble Eightfold Path comes together in the lokuttara (supramundane) is it truly called magga-sacca (the truth of the path).

When mettā has arisen
and you can develop it
into adhicitta-sikkhā (training in higher mind),
even that mettā should be fully known,
because it still lies within the bounds of the truth of suffering.
If it is not fully known,
beings will cling to the idea that
mettā is me, I have mettā,
mettā is in me, I am in mettā;
they see mettā as a self,
see the states that arise with mettā as a self,
and cling to being someone with mettā, and so on,
misunderstanding this stream of life.

How is spreading mettā different from dedicating merit?

Spreading mettā

It emphasizes adosa, which is mettā itself:
the love and goodwill that you spread to yourself and to all beings,
with mettā presiding, leading the way.

Mindfulness does the recollecting, so that mettā stands out and gives rise to love, goodwill, care and mettā; it is training in higher mind, able to make concentration firm at the level of appanā-samādhi (absorption concentration) and to establish the first, second and third jhāna (meditative absorptions).

So you can see that mettā is not a dedication;
it is spreading, so that the mind becomes firmly established:
it is training in higher mind, it is absorption concentration.

Dedicating merit

It uses khaṇika-samādhi, ordinary momentary concentration: giving dāna (a gift) and then dedicating it, or chanting and paying respects to the Buddha, or developing other wholesome acts, listening to or teaching the Dhamma and then dedicating it, directing the merit that has arisen to all beings.

Dedicating merit has two parts: directing wholesome deeds that concern material things, and the part that concerns the mind.

1. Directing wholesome deeds concerned with material things

   For example, wishing that relatives and friends who have passed away may have a place to live, clothing, medicine and food, we first give and then dedicate the merit to them. When departed relatives who are peta (hungry ghosts) learn of it, they must make a wholesome mind arise and rejoice in it; only then do they receive what suits their realm, such as food, clothes or a celestial mansion.

   (It is not that offering a monk’s robe means they will receive a robe; they will receive clothing suited to their own realm.)

2. Directing wholesome deeds that are mental

   For example, when we listen to the Dhamma, recite the Dhamma, or develop any wholesome state, and sīla (virtue), concentration and wisdom arise in the mind, we direct these wholesome states to all beings so that they may rejoice in them too. The merit is fulfilled for them because they have seen us do something good; it becomes pattānumodanāmaya (merit made by rejoicing in another’s merit), which can grow in them into gladness, rapture, tranquility, happiness and concentration.

Besides this, if we listen to the Dhamma and direct the wholesome states that arise from listening to those beings, the beings will come to know when this person listens to the Dhamma. When that time comes, the devatā (celestial beings) who know of it will come to listen as well, glad and delighted that we have not neglected them.

These are the ways merit-making arises, in the two parts described here.
So dedicating merit is different from developing mettā.

Which kind of merit-making most supports the development of mettā?

For a mind of mettā to arise easily,
first of all you need to be a person of wholesome sīla.
Sīla is a mental thing, not a material one.
Sīla is not a format; it is simply a rule of conduct.

If you lock a dog in a cage, it does not go out killing animals or stealing, but the dog does not have sīla, because it has no intention to refrain from killing and no resolve to make sīla arise.
So true sīla comes from deliberate intention to make it arise.
Sīla does not arise all the time; it arises when a wholesome mind arises.

To make a mind of mettā arise most easily, you must train so that wholesome sīla truly arises, including the sīla that concerns your father and mother and your grandparents. Mostly we act out of duty and follow tradition: they raised us, so we look after them in return; we do what they need, carry on the family line, and make ourselves fit to be their heirs; when they pass away, we make merit and dedicate it to them. Done like this, we get the form, but it may not be sīla; it may be only vinaya (discipline), if no wholesome mind arises. Many people have sīla at the level of discipline, but if they do it stressed, troubled and suffering, they have only discipline, not sīla.

When you do it, you must gain faith, the confidence that this is a training; gain effort, mindfulness and a wholesome mind. This is how discipline develops into sīla.
Discipline is rules and regulations … sīla is Dhamma.

To make a mind of mettā arise, you must make sīla arise.

What is spreading boundless mettā? If we are still ordinary people, can we spread mettā without limit?

Mettā-appamaññā means without measure: spreading it without limiting how many people, for example: may all women and all men be happy in body, happy in mind, and safe;
may all human beings be happy in body, happy in mind, and safe.
This is called spreading without limit.

But for our minds to have that much power, to be able to gather themselves until they spread without measure, the mind must be very strong. For example, spreading to the north: however many beings, however many living things there are in the north, spread to them all, beyond measure; and likewise to the south, the east, the west, below and above, spreading without measure.

Sometimes our minds are not yet strong enough,
so we start small and go on until it feels as far as the eye can see.
Even as human beings we can spread it, if the mind has power.

Can developing mettā cut off becoming and birth?

The word “bhava” (becoming) means being born in the sense realm, the fine-material realm or the immaterial realm,
driven by the defilements rāga, dosa and moha (lust, aversion and delusion), for as long as they remain.
Avijjā: not knowing;
taṇhā: craving;
upādāna: clinging;
making kamma, which is fashioned into saṅkhāra (formations),
which brings consciousness, mind-and-body, the six sense bases, contact and feeling,
which brings the five aggregates, as a being in hell, an animal, a hungry ghost, an asura (titan), a human or a deva…
… this is becoming, this is birth, the birth we must go through again and again.

When you develop mettā, mettā cuts off “aversion” directly.
When aversion does not arise, lust and delusion do not arise either.
When defilements do not arise, we do not go on making kamma that turns in vaṭṭa (the round of rebirth).
Develop sīla, and sīla cuts off defilements; concentration cuts off defilements; wisdom cuts off defilements.
Sīla, concentration, wisdom and mettā cutting off defilements is cutting off becoming, cutting off birth.
When wholesome giving and wholesome sīla arise, defilements are abandoned by tadaṅga-pahāna (abandoning by substitution of opposites).
When concentration that is mettā arises, defilements are abandoned by vikkhambhana (suppression).
When the mind has power, gentle, cool, firmly established and strong, and the hindrances are stilled,
you then examine and analyze until you can deal with the defilements once and for all.

This is the very process of cutting off becoming and birth.