Ways of Cultivating Metta – Introduction
You can listen to a RealAudio Recording that will guide you through the introduction on ways of cultivating Metta.
Sometimes when people are beginning to learn lovingkindness meditation they think that lovingkindness is something that’s to be manufactured. And so they make lots of effort to try to generate some emotion, as if they’re trying very hard to wring some emotion from the heart.
And sometimes, if you make a lot of internal effort, you can become somewhat excited and convince yourself that you’re developing lovingkindness. But more often a sense of disappointment and even despondency sets in, because you don’t get the expected result. So this isn’t a very useful approach.
You can’t actually make emotions happen — all you can do is set up the conditions for them to arise and then see what happens. Love can’t be manufactured through meditation. It can’t be squeezed out of our being.
It’s a bit like growing seeds. You can’t make a seed grow. All you can do is provide warmth, water, and soil, and then be patient.
In cultivating feelings of loving kindness we’re encouraging ourselves to wish others well. So how do we set up the conditions for doing this?
Emotional Awareness Exercise
Here is the Music Player. You need to installl flash player to show this cool thing!
The first thing is to become aware of how we actually are feeling just now. This is essential groundwork.
Try this exercise:
- Sit quietly, and take your awareness into your body
- As best you can, relax each muscle as you bring awareness to it
- Bring your awareness to your heart area, and see what emotions are present, smile, and watch what happens
- Remember: whatever emotions you are feeling (good, bad, or even neutral) are fine. You can work with those emotions, and you can only start from where you are
- Bring yourself back to the outside world
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Comments
Comment from Cory
Time: July 14, 2008, 10:57 am
“You can only start from where you are.”
This one concept helped me immensely in cultivating metta.
Brilliantly simple.
Comment from Matthew Brown
Time: November 25, 2008, 9:48 pm
I agree completely — I felt the same way, hearing those words.
Comment from Samantha
Time: February 23, 2009, 4:30 am
I have just listened to your emotional awareness exercise. During the exercise I felt sorrow in my heart area that I didn’t know was there. What do I do now? Just continue with the exercise daily and see what happens do I just observe it. I have only just moved on from the mindfulness of breathing meditation.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: February 23, 2009, 9:42 am
I’d suggest that sorrow, while not exactly pleasant, is often actually a positive emotion. I see it as the heart-feeling we have when we’re separated from something we love and appreciate, and so it’s a reflex of love in much the same way that compassion is the reflex that appears when love meets suffering. I think it’s something to be accepted and valued. I don’t think we need to do anything with it – we don’t need to make it go away and we certainly don’t need to indulge in it. We just need to experience it while it’s there. Like all experiences, it will pass in time. I think we can, if we want, send thoughts of lovingkindness to our sorrow – you might want to dip into the lovingkindness section of the site to get a better idea of what that means.
Comment from Tara
Time: March 8, 2009, 5:12 pm
If it is true that our emotions are all equally valid, then bringing them to the consciousness of metta can only be a good thing. So whatever emotions one is experiencing when the heart opens and the unexpected occurs, can we simply introduce these emotions to lovingkindness and help them to heal? I know fear and love cannot live together, so if we give love to our fears, can we begin to feel Buddha’s healing power? Lovingkindness to me would be a way of life, of being, as close to all the time and with every breath as we can get, but anger overtakes me sometimes, and I have to breathe and sit in meditation to find my loving center again. Yes?
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: March 9, 2009, 8:53 am
Hi Tara,
You’re exactly right. In the end, all we have to do is to embrace all “difficult” emotions with mindfulness and lovingkindness and they will heal themselves.
Comment from Sue
Time: July 17, 2009, 5:09 am
I feel fear and panic and the image of a little girl sitting in a corner hugging her knees looking scared and alone (me as a child). I think this is very relevant to the problems I am experiencing in my marriage currently. Comments that I (and most people would) find hurtful are magnified as they echo my previous circumstances and I then feel panic that I shouldn’t ‘put up with this’ as I am acting as a victim again.
I am sending love to my inner child and we are going for couples counselling to try to change the pattern without any blame.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 17, 2009, 9:01 am
Hi Sue,
I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you’ve been experiencing in your marriage. When I experience the kind of imagery you’re describing, I take it to be a part of myself that I’m seeing as a separate person because I’ve not been fully acknowledging those feelings. So it’s very good that the image of the scared younger you has come into consciousness and that you’re sending her lovingkindness. May you all be well, happy, and free from suffering.
Comment from Sue
Time: July 17, 2009, 3:00 pm
Thank you for your kind words and thoughts.
I too see it as a positive thing and would prefer to be brave and move forwards than stay ‘stuck’.
Luckily I have a husband who is willing to come on the journey with me despite it being well out of his comfort zone.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: July 17, 2009, 3:50 pm
Good for both of you. When we run from fear we avoid growth. When we turn to face our fear we’re already growing.
Comment from Cecylia
Time: December 22, 2009, 4:05 pm
Sue – thank-you for sharing this. I have also gone through a difficult childhood and have found that my relationships now suffere
The imagery you described is very close to what I have visualized and the emotions you described is what I have been feeling
but not acknowledging. Your note has helped me embrace those emotions and start understanding my hypersensitivity and
pain that comes from what other’s would experience as minor incidents. In the past I have blamed the other person for making
me feel this way and just like you I have vowed never to feel like that or let someone abuse me again. Your words are helping me
move forward from this and I’m currently working through the resentment and pain that has build up over the years. Thank-you so
much for sharing and helping others.
Comment from josh
Time: March 5, 2010, 2:48 pm
I like your site, but many people will not install Real player, I have been trying for 20 minutes to find a way to listen to the audio with out installing Real player.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: March 5, 2010, 2:54 pm
Sorry for the inconvenience!. Normally RealPlayer’s not necessary, since we have a flash plugin that plays the guided meditations. But, alas, the plugin stopped working and the developer has not yet suggested a solution or fixed it. We’ve replaced some of the meditations with the aid of YouTube, but putting that together takes time.
Comment from ciaran
Time: May 29, 2010, 11:21 am
might i suggest the realplayer alternative codec which includes a browser plugin. it can be downloaded here for free http://www.free-codecs.com/download/real_alternative.htm
i’m so very glad i happened across this site. i’ve been trying to meditate and deal with many of life’s problems past and present and to rediscover, and essentially reconnect with my inner self, for the good of self and others. unfortunately, most of the material i’ve read was generally confusing and left me even more so, with little care given to the important details you have so extensively and thoughtfully covered.. thank you again for providing an invaluable resource and for being so open with this knowledge.
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: May 29, 2010, 12:36 pm
Hi Ciaran,
Thanks for your kind comments. I’m only too happy to share what I’ve learned.
The plugin sounds useful — it seems to be Windows-only, though. I created those files on very primitive equipment a long time ago when RealPlayer was the only viable format. I’ve long planned to update them all, but the business of making a living keeps getting in the way!
Comment from searching
Time: June 6, 2010, 10:13 pm
Thank you for this site. I’ve been practicing insight meditation only for a few short months, and have just recently been introduced to the concept of metta. In my first metta meditation the other day, I discovered that extending metta towards others near and far from me is not hard, but I am having exceptional difficulty with the first part: loving/forgiving/having compassion for myself. It was a surprisingly painful discovery. What would you recommend for a new practitioner who would like to develop (uncover?) metta towards oneself?
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: June 7, 2010, 8:14 am
Hi, “Searching.”
I’m sure I wrote about this somewhere on the site, but I’m not sure where… At one time I had a big problem with self-hatred. To deal with this I came up with a special form of the metta bhavana, where all of the first four stages were ways of cultivating self-metta. The first stage was as normal. In the second stage I called to mind specific aspects of myself that I liked. I’d name them, and wish them well. In the third stage I’d call to mind qualities that I thought I hadn’t yet developed, and wished them well. In the fourth stage I thought of aspects of myself that I didn’t like, and wished them well. The final stage was as normal. For a long time — perhaps a year or so — this was the only form of the metta bhavana that I did. I found it very effective.
These days I often identify some aspect of myself that I think needs lovingkindness. For example whenever there’s any negative emotion present, I’ll look for the underlying sense of hurt, and wish it well. I also find that to be very effective.
It can be very useful as well to think very specifically about what being “well” or “happy” means for you. So think specifically about what’s going on in your life and use that as a phrase. So something like “May I have compassion for myself” reflects a very specific need you have, and is more likely to be meaningful to you than a generic “may I be happy.”
Comment from Bodhipaksa
Time: June 7, 2010, 11:40 pm
Ah, it was here that I wrote about this approach to self-hatred:
http://www.wildmind.org/metta/metta-four/self-hatred/
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