A Second Personal Mettā Story: Finding Mettā as a Fruit of Dharma Practice

By: Bob Zeglovitch

We generally think of mettā as something that results from a specific practice, like repeating the mettā phrases. Of course, it is that. However, mettā can also arise without our directed intention, sometimes as a fruit of our meditation and dharma practice. It is good to know this and to be open to recognizing mettā when it arises organically in this way.

On a lengthy retreat that I did in Lumbini, Nepal under the direction of Sayadaw U Vivekananda, in the Burmese Vipassana tradition of Mahasi Sayadaw, I had an experience that put this in high relief for me. The retreat was focused on the development of insight, with the meditation instructions beginning with the close observation of the rise and fall of the abdomen, and progressing from there in various ways to the arising and passing away of all phenomena, seeing dukkha (suffering), impermanence and not-self in visceral ways. I met every other day with the Sayadaw (teacher) and on every other day with his assistant, a Burmese nun named Sayalay Bhadda Manika. At each meeting, I made very specific reports on my meditation experiences, based on notes that I was keeping as instructed. The Sayadaw “charted” my development in a notebook he kept for all the meditators, and adjusted the meditation instructions accordingly. It was a challenging practice that led to various striking and first-time experiences for me—not to mention a great deal of physical and mental discomfort. All of these experiences were necessary, integral and important components of the progression of insight in this particular tradition. One of the unusual and challenging experiences is understood in this tradition as the insight knowledge of fear. This is an experience of dukkha, related to a direct perception of the radical impermanence of all phenomena, and is important to this story.

There was no explicit mettā practice during the retreat, with the exception of a beautiful mettā chant that we sang at the end of each long day. On the 28th day of the retreat, not too long after I had gone through the dukkha insight experience of fear, the Sayadaw gave me a list of ten things to pay close attention, one of which was to check my relationship to other retreatants, whether it was loving-kindness or other states. He made clear that I was not to try to manufacture anything. In fact, another one of the things that he told me to keep an eye out for was that at this point was any change to my mental state that was on the unwholesome side, noting that I should be mindful of it and not take it personally.

As was the case on numerous other occasions during my retreats with him, on this day Sayadaw Vivekananda knew exactly where my mind was and where it was headed. This was due to his skill in guiding meditators but also because of the natural and “lawful” progression of this style of practice. It was quite uncanny.

Just before I had my interview with him, I had noticed that my attitude toward my fellow retreatants had changed—I had new feelings of warmth toward them, noticed that I was going out of my way to be accommodating to others, and also that I had a clear sense of sympathetic joy (mudita) toward other retreatants and their apparent progress on the path (based on their questions after the dharma talks). Shortly after my interview, I saw a fellow retreatant on the walking path. I knew nothing about her, but instantly and spontaneously knew that the one thing we shared in common was dukkha, and my heart naturally and without effort opened to her.

This is simply one example of how mettā can arise on its own as a result of practice. You don’t have to be immersed in an intensive retreat for a month in a practice like this for mettā to emerge. This instance sticks out for me because it was an unusual experience and because it tracked so elegantly with a very skilled teacher’s guidance and knowledge about the unfolding that occurs with this practice. The mind of mettā can emerge from in different practice settings and under different circumstances and at any time. The main point that I want to make is that even when we are not pursuing mettā as an explicit practice, we can simply be mindful of our relationships with others, to see if this quality of mind is present. It is important not to miss mettā if it arises—and our mindfulness of it will enhance its impact.

A Personal Mettā Story: At Death's Doorstep

By Bob Zeglovitch:

I’ve had a handful of personally compelling experiences with mettā in my life, and I thought I would share them on this blog during our practice period. I do this not because I think I have any special capacity for mettā. Instead, I simply hope that these experiences will serve as some examples of how mettā can be a powerful force. I am very grateful for these few instances in my life. They serve as wholesome memories for me and remind me of what is possible. I’ve told a couple of these stories before in our sangha, but some of our members have not heard them (or some have perhaps forgotten them!) and I’ll try to add a twist or two that will in any event hopefully make the re-telling worthwhile.

My first story has to do with my father’s death. My dad was often difficult to be around. He could be cutting, sarcastic, and mean at times. Later in life my relationship with him improved (although he could still be quite churlish). He had a misanthropic streak and lacked friends or any social network. My mom died shortly after he retired, and he spent many years alone, surviving a difficult bout with cancer. In his 80’s, he developed dementia. It was a somewhat slow decline, and he fiercely resisted getting the help he needed, living independently at a great distance from me and my two brothers, with the wheels slowly falling off. Thankfully, circumstances eventually came together which enabled us to place him a very nice memory care unit. When he arrived there, the presence of a community seemed to open something up in him, a kindness and gentleness that was not evident previously.

While my dad had dementia, he knew who he was talking to and he could sometimes carry on relatively cogent conversations, amidst some bizarre ideations and significant memory lapses. There was some renewed difficulty in our relationship because he was paranoid about money, and I was the executor of his estate and had power of attorney to manage his finances. Unfortunately, I became a target for his sense of loss of control and his fear that someone was going to take advantage of him. I worked through this with him the best that I could, trying to reassure him that his assets were safe and no one was stealing from him.

At some point, as a result of a pretty clear intention on his part, he stopped eating and went into hospice. I thought that it might be a good thing to offer him mettā as he faced death. It was immediately apparent to me that the traditional mettā phrases would not be suitable for a dying person, so I developed my own phrases, as follows: (1) May your mind be clear and spacious, free from fear or worry; (2) May your body be relaxed and free from pain; (3) May your heart be open and filled with love; (4) May you be free of any clinging to this life and any craving for future existence; and (5) May your journey be peaceful and filled with ease.

I told my dad what I was going to be doing and he signaled that he was open to it. He did not know much about Buddhism and was not spiritual or religious—although he had always been curious about the mind and consciousness. He was not prone to the softer and emotional side of life, so I wondered how this would go. The family members who were present gathered around his bed and I slowly recited the phrases out loud, with everyone else joining in silently. After a number of minutes of the recitation, he made a face and starting gesturing with his index finger toward his chest. I thought he might be in pain or distress, and I leaned in to ask him what he was trying to communicate. He whispered, ”I understand, in my heart.” It was a beautiful—and truly surprising—moment, with the gift of mettā landing and opening his heart at just the right time. And yet, at the same time there was a tragic element to this—the fact his heart was not more open during his life, when he and others could have benefitted.

As I reflect back on this, a few things stand out for me. First, I’m very grateful that I had been exposed to and trained in mettā practice, so that I could share it with my dad when he needed it. In a more general sense, I can say that my dharma practice gave me enough stability to think of offering this practice and then to carry it out. Second, this was an instance where giver and receiver (and perhaps the gift itself) became hard to separate. I could say that I gave the gift of mettā to my dad, but I was receiving the gift at the same time. His relatively peaceful death was of great benefit to me, as was this moment between us. Third, while mettā is often a solitary practice where we cultivate our wishes for goodwill silently to ourselves, even as we are radiating them out to others, this was making the practice more explicitly interpersonal and relational. While it may not always be appropriate or possible to vocalize our mettā to others, we can look for opportunities where it may be received. We might have to take the risk that it will not land well, but we can use our intuition and discernment. Finally, we can use our best efforts to be creative in how we adapt mettā to the circumstances at hand, using language that has the best chance of expressing our intention and “hitting the mark.”

A wonderful resource along these lines is Roshi Joan Halifax’s short paper on The Boundless Abodes for Caregiving, Dying, Grieving. (Hyperlinked here). I hope that you will remember this resource and that it will be of benefit to you and to other beings as you and/or they face one of these challenges.

What's Love Got to Do With It? The Nature of Metta

By: Bob Zeglovitch

In the West, mettā is most commonly translated as as loving-kindness. This translation has a certain appeal—who wouldn’t want to develop love and kindness toward self and others? For those who have been raised in a Christian tradition, the injunction to love may feel familiar in a religious context. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” When we practice mettā, however, we may begin to feel a rub that comes from this common translation. It is not so easy to express love toward everyone. For instance, try as I might, I cannot really muster love for Donald Trump, or for Vladimir Putin. And, I’ll admit that I’m frankly a bit suspicious of someone who claims that they can (that is, other than one of their followers). There may be some wishful thinking at work, or a lack of clarity and/or truthfulness. The ultimate aim of mettā is to develop an impartial wish for happiness and good will toward all beings—so if our conception of mettā is that it means love, we may well have a hard time in cultivating this kind of heart/mind. In our lives, we tend to be partial toward people we love. We don’t see them impartially, as just like everyone else.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu reminds us that the Pali word for love is not mettā, but instead is pema. Mettā is instead related to the Pali word mitta, which means “friend.” Some commentators accordingly use the term friendliness for metta. For me, this is a little better but sort of runs into the same challenge posed by the word “love”—as in, I’m not friends with everyone. Thanissaro uses the word “goodwill” for mettā. He notes that there are two reasons why thinking of mettā as goodwill makes sense:

“The first is that goodwill is an attitude that you can express toward everyone without fear of being hypocritical or unrealistic, [and] [i]t recognizes that people become truly happy not as a result of your caring for them but as a result of their own skillful actions and that the happiness of self-reliance is greater than any happiness coming from dependency. The second reason is that goodwill is a more skillful feeling to have toward those who would react unskillfully to your loving-kindness. There are people who, when seeing that you want to express lovingkindess, would be quick to take advantage of it. There are also people you’ve harmed in the past who would rather not have anything to do with you ever again, so the intimacy of lovingkindness would actually be a source of pain for them.”

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Sublime Attitudes, page 17.

I appreciate Thanissaro’s realistic assessment. He says that when we extend thoughts of mettā to others, we are not offering to make them happy, as we might in a loving relationship, but rather are expressing the wish that they take responsibility for their happiness themselves. You are happy to provide help if there is anything that you can do, but you realize you can only do so much.

I don’t mean to knock love and loving-kindness! If your heart opens most readily by using lovingkindness rather than goodwill, by all means do what comes naturally. There are certainly times when that is true for me. I would just say that you might keep one eye open as to whether you are creating any unnecessary struggle within by trying to extend love where it is not naturally present, or in a situation where it is not the most skillful. Thanissaro comments, “[i]f you truly feel mettā for yourself and others, you can’t let your desire for warm feelings of love and intimacy blind you to what would actually be the most skillful way to promote true happiness for all.” The Sublime Attitudes, page 17.

We don’t have to feel “less than” if we acknowledge that we don’t love everyone. It is no mean feat to cultivate a heart/mind that moves in the direction of freely offering goodwill to all beings!

Note: For more on this theme, see the links to Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s free e-book The Sublime Attitudes, as well as his article in Lion’s Roar, “When Goodwill is Better than Love”, both of which are hyperlinked here.

Practicing with Metta Phrases

By: Bob Zeglovitch

At our last session, we began a practice period on metta (loving kindness, or good will). During our first guided meditation, we practiced metta toward ourselves using the “phrases approach.” The phrases we used were: (1) May I be free from harm; (2) May I be happy and peaceful; (3) May I be healthy and strong; and (4) May I live my life with ease.

In my experience, it can be very helpful to be flexible and creative when it comes to practicing with metta phrases. For example, during the meditation on Friday, I realized that repeating the wish “may I be healthy” when one is dealing with a chronic or serious health condition may not be the most skillful way to proceed—so i suggested an alternative along the lines of “May i live with my current condition of bodily and mental health as best I can.” Obviously there could be many different ways to modify a phrase like this.

Some of the phrases may just not suit you well, and you could play with them so that the practice feels like it flows and lands, and that it opens your heart. In order to remember the phrases and keep the practice simple, you can try just landing on the key words—e.g., without harm, peaceful, healthy, ease.

Here are some variants of the certain phrases: (1) In place of “May I be free from harm” you can say, “May I be safe and protected”; you could also say “May I be free from outer and inner danger”; (2) May I be strong and healthy in mind and body, and if that’s not possible, may I still experience moments of well-being and joy in the body I have. (3) May I care for myself with ease and joy, and if that’s not possible, may I be cared for with ease and joy; (4) May I be happy, truly, truly happy. Nos. 2-4 above are taken from Arisika Razak, a teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center.

As you play with this practice, one option might be to just stay close to one phrase for an extended period, perhaps the entire meditation, or until you feel ready to move onto another phrase (as opposed to cycling through the sequence of phrases again and again).

There may also be special circumstances in which we wish to offer metta for ourselves and others, such as caregiving, dying, or grieving. The “standard” phrases may not fit well here, so modifications are again in order. I’ll visit this in future posts.

Working with the phrases requires (and develops) concentration and persistence. As with the practice of following the breath, we will lose our focus and forget which phrase we are on (or the practice entirely!) and then need to return. We don’t need to worry about being perfect with this, but can simply pick up with whatever phrase comes readily, or perhaps by just going back to the first phrase in the sequence.

One potential that comes from working with phrases is that one or more of them may become reflexive, so that it is readily available to you during the day and in moments of need, as opposed to just during a formal meditation practice.

May you all be happy and peaceful, living your lives with ease and joy!