Hello all,
This thread is a short overview of metta, or loving-kindness.
After Easter I?ll post a meditation on loving kindness, and the Metta Sutta?..the words of the Buddha on loving-kindness. The suttas or sutras are word for word translations from the Pali of the Buddha?s own teachings.
I write these little threads from teachings I have received and the notes I?ve taken and from questions I?ve asked my teacher.
METTA ??.. IN A VERY SMALL NUTSHELL?..
Settle back???? relax. Please take your time going through this.
In cultivating loving-kindness, we train to be honest, loving and compassionate towards ourselves. We learn to become a friend to ourselves, and cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Then, we can move on to feeling it for others.
Too often our fear of intimacy, fear of being hurt, holds us back. I have a book mark which has the following quote ?Fear knocked at the door. Faith opened it. There was no-one there?
And too often we equate happiness with acquiring possessions?. Which we will eventually lose or discard. But more on this at a later time..
Metta, is usually translated from Pali as 'loving kindness', and is one of four mental states that Buddhists wish to cultivate. The other three are compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
Loving kindness (metta) is wanting others to be happy, and being happy for them; it is a warmth that reaches out and embraces others.
The word metta has two root meanings: One is the word for ?gentle?, and the other is?friend? So understanding metta is understanding true friendship.
Compassion (karuna) is wanting others to be free from suffering, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, where one empathises with other people?s difficulties. It must not be confused with pity, which merely mimics the quality of concern without empathy.
Sympathetic joy (mudita) is rejoicing in the good qualities and good fortune of others, rather than hold feelings of jealousy towards them.
And Equanimity (upekkha) is regarding every sentient being as equal and of having patient acceptance of both joy and suffering?.. both our own and others?
Practising loving-kindness helps us to actively cultivate positive emotional states towards ourselves and others, so that we become more patient, kind, accepting, compassionate, and develop selfless, altruistic love. We gradually become more concerned with others? welfare. We open to the sense of love that is not bound by desire.
In cultivating metta, we remember that the mind is naturally radiant and pure. Metta is the ability to open ourselves to that mind.
Helping to keep the mind open and sweet, it acts as a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion, helping to change old habituated negative patterns of mind.
The Dalai Lama has said to people who have experienced fear to ?When you?re afraid, just put your head in the lap of the Buddha? This is symbolic of the safety of true friendship. ?The culmination of metta is to become such a friend to ourselves and all of life?.
In the Buddhist tradition, there is an emphasis on developing love for yourself as a prerequisite for loving others. Buddhists believe that if you don?t love yourself, then it?s hard, if not impossible, for you to love other people.
In the Dhammapada, a text of Buddha?s teachings, Buddha says: "Hatred cannot coexist with loving-kindness, and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based on loving-kindness."
So, the first thing is to learn to like ourselves. If we don?t like ourselves we?re never going to truly love others. Nor are we likely to be very happy, because we don?t value our own happiness.
So, learn to be a friend to yourself. Friendship and goodwill towards yourself and others is central to so much of Buddhism.
The first step in cultivating metta is to see when we put up barriers between ourselves and other people. Unless we understand that we often harden our hearts towards ourselves and others, we cannot dissolve that hardness, and our loving kindness is held back from us.
In some teachings it is called ?placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness?. Metta is a practice which leads to great peace, happiness and serenity of heart and mind.
The formal practice of loving-kindness has a number of stages, and starts with us engendering loving-kindness for ourselves. Then, we expand it to include loved ones and friends, and ?neutral? people. We then move on to people who irritate us or hold a grudge against us ( or we with them) , and finally expand our loving ? kindness to all beings throughout time and space.
Each stage of this practice allows us to loosen the tightness in our heart, face our demons and to uncover our ability to love without bias.
You can try it in little stages . For example, while waiting at the checkout or bus queue, just send out thoughts of kindness to someone in the queue. ?May you be well, may you not have any problems at work to-day? More on this in the meditation thread after Easter.
This is just a very brief introduction to the concept of metta. Please look further yourselves. There are many books and internet threads for you to get more detail and information.
Try Buddhanet, as they have audio meditations etc. (which I can?t access because I?m on a slow phone line.)
A couple of good books are:
Loving ? Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
by Sharon Salzberg, and
The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron.
You can get them on line through Shambala books, or in Australia through Windhorse books.
Rags.
This thread is a short overview of metta, or loving-kindness.
After Easter I?ll post a meditation on loving kindness, and the Metta Sutta?..the words of the Buddha on loving-kindness. The suttas or sutras are word for word translations from the Pali of the Buddha?s own teachings.
I write these little threads from teachings I have received and the notes I?ve taken and from questions I?ve asked my teacher.
METTA ??.. IN A VERY SMALL NUTSHELL?..
Settle back???? relax. Please take your time going through this.
In cultivating loving-kindness, we train to be honest, loving and compassionate towards ourselves. We learn to become a friend to ourselves, and cultivate a clear-seeing kindness. Then, we can move on to feeling it for others.
Too often our fear of intimacy, fear of being hurt, holds us back. I have a book mark which has the following quote ?Fear knocked at the door. Faith opened it. There was no-one there?
And too often we equate happiness with acquiring possessions?. Which we will eventually lose or discard. But more on this at a later time..
Metta, is usually translated from Pali as 'loving kindness', and is one of four mental states that Buddhists wish to cultivate. The other three are compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
Loving kindness (metta) is wanting others to be happy, and being happy for them; it is a warmth that reaches out and embraces others.
The word metta has two root meanings: One is the word for ?gentle?, and the other is?friend? So understanding metta is understanding true friendship.
Compassion (karuna) is wanting others to be free from suffering, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, where one empathises with other people?s difficulties. It must not be confused with pity, which merely mimics the quality of concern without empathy.
Sympathetic joy (mudita) is rejoicing in the good qualities and good fortune of others, rather than hold feelings of jealousy towards them.
And Equanimity (upekkha) is regarding every sentient being as equal and of having patient acceptance of both joy and suffering?.. both our own and others?
Practising loving-kindness helps us to actively cultivate positive emotional states towards ourselves and others, so that we become more patient, kind, accepting, compassionate, and develop selfless, altruistic love. We gradually become more concerned with others? welfare. We open to the sense of love that is not bound by desire.
In cultivating metta, we remember that the mind is naturally radiant and pure. Metta is the ability to open ourselves to that mind.
Helping to keep the mind open and sweet, it acts as a way of healing the troubled mind to free it from its pain and confusion, helping to change old habituated negative patterns of mind.
The Dalai Lama has said to people who have experienced fear to ?When you?re afraid, just put your head in the lap of the Buddha? This is symbolic of the safety of true friendship. ?The culmination of metta is to become such a friend to ourselves and all of life?.
In the Buddhist tradition, there is an emphasis on developing love for yourself as a prerequisite for loving others. Buddhists believe that if you don?t love yourself, then it?s hard, if not impossible, for you to love other people.
In the Dhammapada, a text of Buddha?s teachings, Buddha says: "Hatred cannot coexist with loving-kindness, and dissipates if supplanted with thoughts based on loving-kindness."
So, the first thing is to learn to like ourselves. If we don?t like ourselves we?re never going to truly love others. Nor are we likely to be very happy, because we don?t value our own happiness.
So, learn to be a friend to yourself. Friendship and goodwill towards yourself and others is central to so much of Buddhism.
The first step in cultivating metta is to see when we put up barriers between ourselves and other people. Unless we understand that we often harden our hearts towards ourselves and others, we cannot dissolve that hardness, and our loving kindness is held back from us.
In some teachings it is called ?placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness?. Metta is a practice which leads to great peace, happiness and serenity of heart and mind.
The formal practice of loving-kindness has a number of stages, and starts with us engendering loving-kindness for ourselves. Then, we expand it to include loved ones and friends, and ?neutral? people. We then move on to people who irritate us or hold a grudge against us ( or we with them) , and finally expand our loving ? kindness to all beings throughout time and space.
Each stage of this practice allows us to loosen the tightness in our heart, face our demons and to uncover our ability to love without bias.
You can try it in little stages . For example, while waiting at the checkout or bus queue, just send out thoughts of kindness to someone in the queue. ?May you be well, may you not have any problems at work to-day? More on this in the meditation thread after Easter.
This is just a very brief introduction to the concept of metta. Please look further yourselves. There are many books and internet threads for you to get more detail and information.
Try Buddhanet, as they have audio meditations etc. (which I can?t access because I?m on a slow phone line.)
A couple of good books are:
Loving ? Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
by Sharon Salzberg, and
The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron.
You can get them on line through Shambala books, or in Australia through Windhorse books.
Rags.
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