Search results for: metta

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  2. Elemental Normalcy
    Traditionally, when you’re practicing metta meditation, you start with people who are easy to feel metta or goodwill for: people close to your heart, people you love. And then once you feel a sense of well-being with that goodwill, you start spreading the same thoughts to others who are more and more difficult until you find that you can sincerely wish that … 
  3. The Buddha’s Shoulds
    Years back, I sat in on a class where a teacher was talking about the Karaniya Metta sutta, the sutta we just chanted. He started with the first line, “This is what should be done by someone who appreciates the state of peace.” Immediately, a hand shot up. Someone in the class said, “I thought there weren’t any shoulds in Buddhism.” And I … 
  4. Determined on Goodwill
     … There’s a passage in the Karaniya Metta Sutta we chanted just now of being resolved on this mindfulness of goodwill for all. When you’re working on this path, it can’t be simply out of disgust for the world or anger at people who’ve been difficult. It has to come out of goodwill. You try to nurture that quality in your … 
  5. Refuge
     … Years back, when we were starting Wat Metta, we’d get people coming up here and telling us, “Well, now that you’re in America, you have to change the rules, you’ll have to change the way you do things.” My thinking was, “Here I am, far away from my teachers, far away from the place I was trained. If I abandon my … 
  6. The Buddha’s Qualities
     … That’s one of the reasons why we have the chant on metta, because often those issues involve other people: “This person said this, that person said that, how could they do that?” You get yourself all entangled in those issues. So ask yourself, do you really want to be entangled over that person, that kind of issue, that kind of thought in your … 
  7. A Quiet Spot
     … That’s what Ajaan Suwat liked to call Wat Metta: a corner of quietness. But he also talked about meditation as a corner of quietness, this place where the mind can really be solid and settled down and have a firm foundation, even in the midst of all the things that are infirm and unsettled in the rest of the world. After all, when … 
  8. The Courage to Set Yourself Free
     … As he says, fighting the elephant off with metta, with no holds barred. The elephant stares at him for a while, then lowers its ears and walks away. There are two lessons to be drawn here. One is the lesson if you’re afraid to die, your fear is what’ going to keep you dying. This is a theme throughout the practice. As the … 
  9. The Perception of Space
     … When the Buddha is talking about developing goodwill for people who have spoken harshly or lied to you, he said, “Make your mind like space, make your *mettā—*your goodwill—like space.” Space, he says, doesn’t have a surface; nothing can be written on it. In other words, when people abuse you, you don’t take it and keep it; you don’t … 
  10. Planting a Tree
     … The second guardian meditation is metta, goodwill. Remember that you have goodwill for yourself, and that’s why you’re practicing. The Buddha said that when you start feeling discouraged, remind yourself that you started this practice because you love yourself. You want to put an end to suffering. Have you stopped wanting to put an end to suffering? Well, no. It’s just … 
  11. Goodwill for Snakes
     … One, the quality of metta is not necessarily love. The snakes didn’t want my love. They wanted me to leave them alone, and I didn’t want to hang around with them, either. If I had tried to pet them, of course, they would have bitten me. And as Ajaan Fuang said, “We’re different species, and there are so many different ways … 
  12. Right Speech, Inside & Out
     … I’ve been told that, according to the Thai Wat Metta social media right now, the sala we’re in is apparently on the verge of collapsing with the slightest little tremor. Whether that’s true or not, the fact is that our bodies are designed in such a way that when they decide to stop, they don’t give any warning. Perhaps a … 
  13. Restraint Leads to Freedom
     … When you’re careful in this way, that’s when you have a good foundation for the practice of metta, or goodwill. That sutta we chanted just now talks about the things you have to do to create the right environment. You have to be easy to talk to, in other words, easy to instruct. You have to be gentle. Otherwise, the things you … 
  14. Mange in the Mind
     … Is the dirt on the other side of the mountain different from the dirt over here? Are the rocks there different from the rocks here? The first month I came back to the States and settled down in Wat Metta, a group of lay people had organized a trip for the monks to go to Yellowstone. I didn’t go along. Ajaan Suwat went … 
  15. Easy to Instruct
    There are a couple of stories related to the chant we did just now, the Karaniya Metta Sutta. It starts out: “This is what should be done by one aiming at a state of peace.” I happened to be sitting in on a course one time that was focused on translating the sutta. They took it apart line by line, compared different translations, and … 
  16. Goodwill for the Breath
    We start each meditation session with chants on goodwill, metta, to remind ourselves of why we’re here. It’s because we wish for true happiness. As the Buddha once said, wisdom and discernment begin with that question: What can we do that will lead to our long-term welfare and happiness? The whole teaching comes out of that question. We practice generosity, we … 
  17. Page search result icon Shoulds & Desires
     … He’s not forcing this framework on you. ** There’s a passage in the beginning of the Karaniya Metta Sutta: “This is what should be done by one who appreciates the state of peace.” I was sitting in on another course on the brahmaviharas one time. They were going over this sutta line by line, and they started with the first line. As soon … 
  18. The Demands of Goodwill
     … And so metta has its difficult side as well, because it requires you to be very scrupulous, very thoughtful in how you deal with yourself and with other people. It’s often thought of as a nice “feel good” kind of practice—and it does create that energy of feeling good about yourself: that you don’t have any evil intentions toward anyone. You … 
  19. The Buddha’s Secret Weapon
     … Once, when I was in Barre, they were giving a course on the Karaniya Metta Sutta, the one we chant often. I had taught my course the week before, and I was staying on to do a little study, a little meditation of my own, So they asked me to sit in on this other course. The teacher got to the very first line … 
  20. Skilled in Aims
    That chant just now is called the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta because the first words are* karaṇīya*, “what should be done.” The whole phrase is, “what should be done by one skilled in aims.” To be skilled in aims, you have to think about the long-term: What would be conducive to a true, long-term happiness? Much of the sutta is about goodwill. You … 
  21. Acceptance Isn’t the Issue
     … Or as the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta says, “May no one despise anyone anywhere or wish for anyone to suffer.” Goodwill doesn’t mean, “May you be happy as you are, doing whatever you’re doing.” It means, “May you learn to be skillful.” That’s seeing yourself not as a static thing, and seeing other people not as static things, but as agents, able … 
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