What Is Mettā? And the Three Kinds of Love

If mettā (loving-kindness) were a pool of water,
all this time we…
have only run in circles around its edge,
never jumping in.

Catching the scent of the water, we go about telling others the pool is good,
that it washes the body clean.
Some dip in a foot, feel a little coolness,
then climb out and announce to everyone…
“This pool is truly wonderful!”
They have not reached cleanliness,
because they did not dare to jump in,
to scrub and wash themselves clean.
So we have never yet reached true mettā…

The time has come…
for us to get to know mettā thoroughly,
so that we can cultivate mettā correctly
and with power…

“Let mettā be mettā,
truly radiating from the heart.”

Mettā purified by wisdom,
mettā understood, mettā truly used,
mettā carried into every activity of life:
the mind becomes open, clear and light, at one with concentration,
clearly steady and collected.

What Is Mettā?

Mettā… is one of the brahmavihāra (the divine abodes):
mettā, karuṇā (compassion), muditā (sympathetic joy) and upekkhā (equanimity).
They are the noblest qualities to keep in the heart,
the noblest way to dwell,
the noblest and purest principle of conduct.

How should we attend to it, and what causes and conditions should we provide, so that mettā stays in our heart?
…First we must get to know mettā.

Mettā… is a mental phenomenon.
Mettā is wholesome (kusala).
The essential factor of mettā is “adosa”, non-anger.
It belongs to the aggregate of mental formations (saṅkhārakkhandha), one of the five aggregates.

In the Abhidhamma, the mental factors (cetasika) number 52. Feeling (vedanā) is the aggregate of feeling and perception (saññā) the aggregate of perception; the remaining 50 are the aggregate of mental formations. Mental formations are the states that condition the mind, led by intention (cetanā), and they can be wholesome or unwholesome. (For further study, see the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha, chapter 2.)

Dosa (aversion) is the state opposed to mettā…

When dosa arises, mettā is destroyed.
When mettā arises, dosa is destroyed.

True mettā is true love…

Once it arises, it destroys aversion every time. Mettā wants no pleasant feeling (sukha-vedanā) in return; instead it gives rise to love and goodwill without conditions. It truly wants to offer benefit.

True love…

wishes others happiness,
wants them to live long and have a good quality of life,
to be wise, to prosper, to be healthy and strong,
to be wealthy, to have a family living in peace and happiness,
to succeed in life,
wants them to be truly free from the defilements (kilesa) and the whole mass of suffering.

A heart with mettā flows outward as good speech and good action: speaking to others with mettā, acting toward others with mettā, loving to give, to let go, to share, to bring benefit and good things to others.

Mettā
The sign of true love: the mind becomes calm, cool, clear, bright and gentle, like the full moon.

Can We Love?… Why Must It Be Mettā?

Pema means love, and there are three kinds:

1. Taṇhāpema (love born of craving)
2. Gehasitapema (household love)
3. Mettāpema (love that is mettā)

Taṇhāpema: Love Born of Craving

This means the love between a man and a woman who love each other under the power of lust and craving (rāga-taṇhā). When they meet, love arises: infatuation and longing, a love that binds them together, entangled and attached.

This love changes very easily when the body changes!!

For example, hair once jet black turns gray and white,
skin once firm becomes wrinkled and sagging,
eyes grow dim and blurred, ears begin to fail,
the body begins to smell stale.

When the body changes, this kind of love changes too, because craving no longer wants it.

Craving wants beautiful things, so people run around satisfying one another’s craving. When eyebrows thin out, they get them tattooed; when hair turns gray, they dye it; when hair falls out, they have it transplanted; when the face sags, they have surgery to pull it tight.

In the end, craving can never be filled.
The ocean can hold a great deal of water,
but however much it holds, it could never hold enough for craving.

“Natthi taṇhāsamā nadī …
There is no river equal to craving.”

Many people mistake taṇhāpema for mettā. This kind of love clings; this kind of love hurts.

The teaching is not that you should not love…

but that you must learn to hold your heart the right way. All of us have been hurt by these things before.

Gehasitapema: Household Love

This means the love of fathers, mothers, children and grandparents within the family.

Both taṇhāpema and gehasitapema are not wholesome states but craving and lust, greed (lobha), because they come with clinging.

We love and then cling, become attached, possessive, anxious and worried. It is not only craving: views (diṭṭhi) come in and take charge too, and so we cling.

There is conceit (māna): raising ourselves up, putting ourselves forward, comparing ourselves. So it is a love bound up with the wish for pleasant feeling, wanting that pleasant feeling to stay strong, stable, firm and unchanging.

Taṇhāpema and gehasitapema are false love!!

Mettāpema: True Love

Mettāpema is true love.
It means wishing beings and people, both oneself and others, to flourish and prosper, without being bound to any one person, even when far apart. On hearing that someone is happy and doing well, one is glad and content.

“Cultivating mettā means clearing away taṇhāpema and gehasitapema, which are not clean and clear, and cultivating mettāpema abundantly.”

Growing Taṇhāpema and Gehasitapema into Mettāpema

We can develop love that is not clean into love that is clean and clear, simply by moving from “loving and clinging” to “loving and letting go”.

Love and let go, love that is clean and clear… love that is truly mettā.
Don’t block love. Let that love be the starting material, then develop it further.

“Let the unwholesome be a condition for the wholesome…”

Let love arise first. Even if it is love based on craving, keep developing it until it becomes purer, mettāpema, a love that is clean and clear.

The mind becomes light, because it does not cling
…open, clear, light, clean and gentle.

The current is craving,
darting after sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and mental objects
that are desirable, lovely and pleasing,
enticing love, stirring desire, drawing the heart into lust,
then changing on and on without end.

If you love someone with craving,
it will surely bring sorrow.

“…Pemato jāyate soko
From love is born sorrow…”

Whatever has assāda (gratification), that is, delight and satisfaction, bringing pleasure and joy, feeding craving, feeding distorted perception (vipallāsa), bringing delight and enjoyment,

that thing has ādīnava (danger), that is, fault and suffering, with pain within it. We cannot go on amusing ourselves with these things.

So the Buddha taught nissaraṇa (escape): steering the current of life out of infatuation with assāda and ādīnava, that is, all the suffering and harm that cause pain.

Beware of False Mettā

When we love someone and want them to be the way we want, and they are not the way our heart wants them to be, we feel angry, resentful and stressed.

We may have false mettā, which is love with craving, but use this false mettā to develop toward true mettā. False love is love that clings, love with greed and lust (lobha, rāga). Mettā and lust are very close to each other…

“Lust wants others to respond to our feelings and our wants, wants others to take care of us, wants pleasant feeling.”