Metta in Stages

There’s a passage where the Buddha talks about how to get the mind into concentration using the brahmavihāras. It’s the same as you would do with using the four establishings of mindfulness, or four frames of reference.

You start out with directed thought and evaluation. In other words, you think about all the people you know that you have goodwill for. You think about different directions: east, west, north, south, above, and below.

But then you drop the directed thought and evaluation and go for a concentration that has neither—in which case you don’t have to think about individuals anymore. Just think of the quality of goodwill that you spread out in all directions. The image they give in the Canon is of a person blowing a conch trumpet. It’s not that he starts with the east, then goes to the west, and the north and the south. As soon as the noise comes out, it goes in all directions all at once.

So as you’re doing goodwill meditation, there are going to be stages, starting with the stage where you are thinking about people. First, it’s good to think about people you like. It’s easy to spread goodwill to them. Then think about people you’re more neutral about—and then people you don’t like. And ask yourself, “What good would ill will do in any of those cases?” Part of you may say, “Well, this person deserves to suffer.” But wouldn’t it be better for that person just to see the error of his or her ways and then decide to drop whatever is unskillful in his or her behavior? To do that willingly? If you can think of any way that that could happen, you’ll be happy to help. If you can’t think of any way, that’s when you have to have equanimity. But still you’re thinking about individuals, groups of individuals.

Then you want to put that aside. You’ve understood what it means to have goodwill, even for people you don’t like, realizing that this is just a natural part of the world.

There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha says, you think about how the ways of human speech are many and varied. There’s true speech and there’s false speech. There’s well-meaning speech and ill-meaning speech. Useful, useless. So when someone says something to you that’s false, useless, harsh, or ill-meaning, that’s nothing out of the ordinary. So there are no exceptions for goodwill in a case like that.

Similarly, when you think about people who have done harm either to you or to people you love—have done it, are doing it, will do it—you stop and ask yourself: “What should I expect?” That’s the nature of the human race. There are going to be people who have it out for one another. But you can’t let yourself hate them for that. You have to have goodwill there, too.

When you’ve sorted through these concepts so that you understand them, then it’s easier to spread goodwill in all directions without having to think about any particular person. Just think about the quality of goodwill. That can lift your mind to a higher level, lift your heart to a higher level, because we are training both the heart and the mind. Think of the Pali word citta. It means “heart” and it means “mind.” We’re trying to train them together. So as you understand goodwill, you will goodwill in all directions without exception. Then try to maintain that attitude as you go through the day. Whoever you run into, whatever they do, you’re going to have goodwill for them.

It’s all too easy when you leave the monastery: You’re driving down the road, and somebody cuts in front of you. You’ve been thinking, “May all beings be happy, be happy.” Then a being cuts in front of you. If you have dark thoughts about this being, you have to remember, well, this being, too, comes under all beings. You have to have goodwill for that person. In this way, goodwill becomes a foundation for a very solid state of mind, a mind that you can live with, one that lifts you up from your human level where goodwill is partial to a higher level where goodwill can spread all around.