Reflections on loviNg-kindness
Two wings of awakening
Sometimes in buddhism, we talk about the two wings of awakening; the wing of wisdom and the wing of love.
This is a beautiful image of the awakening process that the Buddha invited us into.
For awakening to happen, the bird needs two wings to fly;
1. we have to develop an understanding of the true nature of reality through mindfulness meditation. We have to see how we suffer and how we can free ourselves from suffering.
2. we also need to develop the loving capacity of the heart through the practices of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.
Without the wing of love, wisdom can be a bit remote and distant. We may end up by-passing the more embodied and relational aspect of our practice and we won’t get to experience the deep freedom and well-being that the Buddha was pointing to.
The buddhist path involves developing the mind and the heart. Without both, the bird of awakening won’t take flight.
The heart-mind
The teachings of the Buddha is preserved in an ancient language called the pali language.
The pali word for “mind” is citta which actually translates better as heart-mind.
It appears that for the Buddha there was no real distinction between the heart and the mind as we often have in the west. And interestingly, the heart-mind is not believed to be located in the brain area. Rather it’s located in the heart area.
The Indian lay practitioner Dipa Ma, famous for embodying deep wisdom and deep love, is quoted for saying that she could not see the difference between mindfulness and loving-kindness.
She said….”when you are mindful aren’t you also kind…..and when we you kind aren’t you also mindful”?
For Dipa Ma there was no difference between wisdom connected with mindfulness practice and the heart of loving-kindness.
The two wings of wisdom and love, naturally came together for her within the practice of meditation.
Heartbased wisdom
We can intuit this heartbased wisdom in someone like the Dalai Lama.
It’s always a risk to place someone on a pedestal. Yet, the Dalai Lama seems to be someone who both lives from a place of great wisdom, and is relationally attuned as well.
He appears to live deeply within his heart, embodying great kindness and compassion in his interactions with others. He always appear to seek out and attend to those in a crowd that need it the most. Offering his full loving attention.
What is uplifting when watching someone like the Dalai Lama, is that he seems very happy and free when attuning to others. It is not burden for him to be kind to everyone around him. Rather it looks like he is fed by the exchange of loving energy as well.
The kindness he offers, seem to make him just as happy, as it makes those around him.
The benefits of loving-kindness
We don’t just practice loving-kindness to be good to others. It’s a training of our own heart-mind.
And with this training there is the potential for experiencing deeper happiness and freeing our heart-minds from some of the chronic stress we often feel.
The Buddha listed eleven benefits stemming from loving-kindness practice:
1. One sleeps happily…..
2. One wakes happily….
3. One has no bad dreams….
4. One is loved by others….
5. One is loved by non-humans….
6. One is guarded by devas…..
7. Fire, poison, or sword won’t touch one…..
8. One’s mind becomes concentrated quickly…..
9. One’s complexion is beautiful…..
10. One dies with a mind free from confusion…..
11. If no higher attainment is reached, one is reborn in the Brahma realms…..
Seeing for ourselves
Through his teachings, it is clear that the Buddha pointed to great benefits from practicing loving-kindness. Yet, we are not asked to believe any of his teachings with blind faith.
The Buddha often said “ehipassiko”, which means “come see for yourself”.
So the invitation is simply to explore for ourselves. And see if these teachings on loving-kindness can support a greater sense of happiness and inner freedom for each of us personally.
Definitions of loving-kindness
Interestingly, the Buddha didn’t really define loving-kindness in very specific ways. He didn’t say, this is what loving-kindness is, and this is what it is not.
Yet, based on the way he spoke about loving-kindness throughout his teachings, we can draw some conclusions about how we can understand this quality of loving-kindness.
Loving-kindness as unconditional love
He often inferred in his teachings that loving-kindness it a type of unconditional love.
Loving-kindness is not reliant upon anyone being good or somehow deserving love.
Loving-kindness doesn’t have the usual conditions attached to it, that we often put on exchanges of love in our daily lives.
We often have the unconscious idea that “if you love me, I will love you as well” or ‘If you do this for me, I will love you in return”. Or
‘If you don’t do this for me, I will pull back my love for you”.
We see this type of conditional love all the time in romantic relationships, family connections and friendships. It’s a type of bargaining, where love is conditioned upon us fulfilling each other’s expectations and needs.
There are strings attached to this type of love; it’s dependent upon the giver of love getting something back from the receiver of love.
Loving-kindness, on the other hand, is freely offered. It does not need anything in return. It’s a true gift, a true offering.
In a dhamma talk the teacher Joseph Goldstein quotes the French philosopher Montaigne describing this type of unconditional love quite well.
Montaigne says this about true friendship:
“I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me.
I not only like doing him good.
Better than having him do me good, I would rather have him do good to himself.
He does me most good when he does good to himself”.
This quote quite well expresses the essence of unconditional love. Not needing anything in return, but simply wishing for the deep well-being of another. Being deeply contented and happy, when they are contented and happy.
Conditions on love for ourselves
Very often we have the same bargaining going on in our own self-relationship.
Our love and care for ourselves is often dependent upon us fulfilling our own expectations of ourselves.
It is conditioned upon us living up to some standard for how we should behave, how we should to act, how we should to be in the world to deserve love.
Many people struggle with some form of perfectionism. And with that comes the shadow side of unworthiness. Feeling that we are never good enough the way we are. Feeling that we are not really loveable the way we are.
Both perfectionism and low self-worth, are rooted in this type of conditioned self-love.
We feel the need to constantly perform and achieve things, so that we can feel deserving of love.
Yet, conditioned self-love is really a moving target. As soon as we reach the goal of being good enough, the goal just changes. And now there is a new thing we have to live up to, to feel worthy of love.
Self-love is the base for loving all beings
The paradox is that Buddha actually stated that there is no being more deserving of love than ourselves.
In a sutta called the Raja-sutta he said:
“ if you surveyed the entire world, you would find no one more dear than yourself.
Since each person is most dear to themselves, those who love themselves should not bring harm to anyone”
Our ability to love ourselves unconditionally, is the really the base for holding all beings with unconditional loving-kindness.
When there are parts of ourselves that we dismiss, reject or judge, we also tend to dismiss, reject and judge those qualities in others.
As we learn to hold all parts of our own experience with unconditional loving-kindness, we prepare the heart to also offer unconditional love to other beings.
Loving-kindness as boundless love
Another quality of loving-kindness that the Buddha pointed to is the quality of boundlessness.
He often spoke about extending loving-kindness out in all directions including all beings everywhere with a deep wish for their wellbeing, their ease, their safety.
In a teaching called the metta sutta, he said:
‘With loving-kindness for the whole world
One should cultivate a boundless heart,
Above, below, and all around
Without obstruction, without hate and without ill-will.
Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
As long as one is alert,
May one stay with this recollection.
This is called a sublime abiding, here and now”.
When the heart opens to unconditional love for ourselves and other beings, it naturally starts to include more and more beings. The heart can even include the ones that we usually overlook and the ones that we may dislike.
And as loving-kindness expands, the heart has the potential of entering into a subjective experience of limitlessness, for shorter or longer periods of time.
There can be an unobstructed flow of love in all directions….
Not excluding any beings….
Not preferring any beings…..
Not overlooking any beings…..
Holding all of them held within a boundless heart of loving-kindness.
There is the potential for a great sense of freedom in this experience of boundless love for all beings.
The experience of boundlessness, can eventually lead to a meditative state where the sense of separation between self and other disappears within the free flow of love.
This is what the Buddha called the liberation of the heart. Through boundless love, the heart releases into a state of deep well-being. There is an absence of the usual patterns of suffering connected with self-identity. There is a subjective state of temporary freedom.
The heart of an awakened being is said to rest permanently in this state of boundless goodwill. Yet, for all of us still on the path, we can experience moments in meditation or daily life where we can sense into this quality of boundlessness.
Friendliness
The last aspect of metta that is important to highlight is the quality of friendliness. The word metta actually has the same root as the word mitra which means friend in the pali language.
So one way to think about this is that metta is a type of love we can most easily find in friendships.
Of course friendships can also be complicated. We can feel abandoned, upset or betrayed in friendships like in any other type of relationship.
Yet, most of us can probably remember times in a friendship where we felt a quality of unconditional positive regard that we either received from a dear friend or offered to them.
Perhaps a deep unselfish wish for this friend to be happy and at ease.
Simply wanting the best for them even if that is not what we personally needed most in that moment.
The word friendliness may also feel a bit easier for us to connect with than the word love or the word kind.
When we say loving-kindness, it can sometimes feel like a high bar for us to reach for. It often brings up expectations of very warm feelings that can seem unreachable or inauthentic.
On the contrary, the word friendliness may feel more accessible for us.
Metta can sometimes be felt as a very quiet energy, where we simply hold ourselves and others with a loyal steady friendliness.
In its essence, loving-kindness is really the absence of ill-will. So it can have many flavors from a quiet benevolence towards all beings. To a very expansive sense of warmth and care. And the word friendliness can encompass all of those flavors quite well.
Loving-kindness as intention
Loving-kindness is actually an intention rather than a feeling. With loving-kindness we have a strong intention for all beings to be well, to be happy, and to be at ease.
We may recognize this from our important friendships as well. We have a strong intention to take care of the friendship. To be a good friend to our friend and to support their well-being.
Sometimes these intentions give rise to warm and expansive feelings. Other times our commitment to the relationship is felt as a more neutral benevolent energy.
We are also working with intention in our practice of loving-kindness.
Even when the practice feels more bland and dry, we can trust that we are still developing metta even when there are no sparkles and fireworks.
A natural love
In some ways metta love is a very natural kind of love.
It’s a deeply human capacity for us to feel care and love for living beings.
For sure, we don’t feel it all the time. Yet, without loving-kindness, we would not have been able to develop a societies and communities together.
As a species, we are totally reliant upon the basic goodness of others. Without the intensive care of others, we would not have survived our first years of life. And when we age, we again rely on the care of others. Our lives are deeply interconnected from the beginning to the end.
If we pay close attention, we will see that there are many moments of spontaneous kindness happening all the time.
A stranger opening a door for us. The cashier at the grocery shop smiling warmly. People helping each other on the street.
These moments can seem so ordinary that we just don’t give them attention. It’s often the drama and the difficulty that gets our attention.
Yet, if we pay closer attention, we will see many moments of spontaneous kind gestures happening all throughout the day.
Within ourselves or within other beings.
So this metta quality is not foreign to any one of us. One could say that it’s an innate potential within our human nature that we all can tap into because it’s deep within our human wiring to care about each other.
It’s just that the capacity for metta often gets clouded over by all the patterns of suffering that we all struggle with.
Fears that we won’t have enough leading to stinginess and withholding care for others.
Fears that we will lose the ones we love, leading to pulling them closer and trying control them.
Fears that what is important to us will be violated, taken away from us, leading us to react with anger in order to protect ourselves.
The hearts release
And so, from this perspective, the hearts release, is really the release of the patterns of suffering which clouds the hearts capacity for loving-kindness.
And likely, we have all had at least momentary experiences of the hearts release.
Times when we have been fully focused on supporting someone else. Or times when someone else has fully supported us.
Although the external circumstances might have been difficult, we may still have felt the great expanse connected with the exchange of loving-kindness.
The sense that the loving exchange itself was much larger than the challenge in the particular situation.
We may have felt how the connection through metta, offered a beautiful release from the usual self-concern.
Sometimes we can even feel the hearts release by witnessing loving acts in other people.
It’s not that long ago since we would come out on our lawns or balconies in the afternoons and salute the brave health care workers during the Covid crisis.
Although the situation itself was very difficult, many felt deeply touched by this shared expression of love in the midst of the difficulty.
It’s during these times, that we might intuit that the capacity for love is bigger than all the suffering of world.
And we may intuitively understand that freedom and well-being cannot possibly come through self-focus and fear. It has to come through the deep wish for the welfare of all beings everywhere.
Brahmaviharas
Metta is one of the four so-called Brahma-Viharas taught by the Buddha.
The other three are called compassion or karuna as it’s called in the pali language, appreciative joy or mudita, and equanimity or upekka.
The word brahma refers to the chief of the Gods in Hinduism, and the word vihara means divine abode or divine home. So the word Brahma-Viharas can be translated as the divine home of the Gods.
In our meditation practice, the four Brahma-Viharas can be seen as inner sanctuaries of love that we can cultivate and take refuge in.
While each of the Brahma-Viharas are often taught as separate practices, they are really just different facets of the same basic energy of loving-kindness.
So when the heart steeped in metta, meets the suffering of beings, it naturally turns to compassion.
And when metta meets good fortune in beings, it celebrates and appreciates their joy; this is mudita.
And when metta rests back into wisdom, knowing that all beings have their own path, their own life to live, it settles back into equanimity, upekka.
Like the love of a child at different stages of development
The four Brahma-Viharas has been likened to how a loving parent relates to their child at different stages of their development.
With a very young child, who is healthy and well, there is unconditional love, unconditional care for that child.
With a child who is hurt or gets sick, this love turns into compassion and a wish to offer relief for their suffering.
With the adolescent child who is out in the world, exploring and enjoying life, there is joy on their behalf. Happiness that they are happy, appreciative joy, mudita.
And with the adult child, who has moved away and started their own life, there is a letting go into equanimity, upekka. Trusting that they now have the skills and the capacity to fully care for themselves. Knowing that they now have their own life to live.
Loving kindness and the overall path
An important questions is how loving kindness fits into the overall awakening process that the Buddha was pointing to?
It is clear from reading the Buddhist texts, that enlightenment doesn’t mean that we get anything Ina conventional sense. We don’t become some great radiant being or live in an ever-lasting state of bliss.
Rather, the awakening process involves a very deep release of all the ways that we try to hold onto experiences and push away experiences.
The suffering that the Buddha was pointing to, is really a state of deep contraction. And in the contraction there is always a strong sense of “I” or “me” at the center of the experience. We are focused on what we want and what we don’t want.
With loving-kindness, we find freedom through releasing the painful self-focus and letting go into the connection with all beings.
Yet, this does not mean that we don’t take care of our own being.
As the Buddha pointed to, we are just as worthy of care as all other beings. Releasing self-focus does not mean we don’t care for ourselves.
It just means that our care is not based in the usual patterns of fear that we won’t have enough or be enough.
With loving kindness, we can feel a basic sense of safety and well-being independent how we may feel that we perform in life.
Loving-kindness as the ethical foundation
In the bigger picture of the path, loving-kindness is really the ethical foundation of the Buddhist teachings.
Sometimes we may feel that meditating and watching our own minds is a bit self-indulgent. What about other beings? What about all the suffering of the world ?
Yet, this whole path is focused on letting go of how we create suffering for ourselves and for other beings.
And we really have to work on our own minds, to be able to act in the world in skillful ways.
I once heard the teacher Gil Fronsdale say something quite funny.
He said that rather than freeing ourselves with this practice, we actually free others from us.
What he meant, I think, is that by becoming less reactive, less fearful, through our practice, others feel safer in our company.
Whether we want it or not, this practice will make us kinder and more open-hearted.
What is good for our own hearts and minds, is also good for others.
And what is good for others, is also good for us.
METTA SUTTA
Tye Buddha’s own words on loving-kindness is best described Ina sutta called the metta sutta
To reach the state of peace, those skilled in the good should be capable and upright,
straightforward and easy to speak to, gentle and not proud,
contented and easily supported,
Living lightly and with few duties, wise and with senses calmed, not arrogant and without greed for supporters, and they should not do the least thing that the wise would criticize.
[They should reflect:]
“May all be happy and secure;
May all beings be happy at heart.
All living beings, whether weak or strong,
Tall, large, medium, or short,
Tiny or big,
Seen or unseen,
Near or distant,
Born or to be born,
May they all be happy.
Let no one deceive another
Or despise anyone anywhere;
Let no one through anger or aversion wish for others to suffer.”
As a mother would risk her own life to protect her child, her only child, so toward all beings should one cultivate a boundless heart.
With loving-kindness for the whole world should one cultivate a boundless heart,
Above, below, and all around
Without obstruction, without hate and without ill-will.
Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
As long as one is alert,
may one stay with this recollection.
This is called a sublime abiding, here and now.
Whoever is virtuous, endowed with vision, Not taken by views,
And having overcome all greed for sensual pleasure will not be reborn again.
Sometimes in buddhism, we talk about the two wings of awakening; the wing of wisdom and the wing of love.
This is a beautiful image of the awakening process that the Buddha invited us into.
For awakening to happen, the bird needs two wings to fly;
1. we have to develop an understanding of the true nature of reality through mindfulness meditation. We have to see how we suffer and how we can free ourselves from suffering.
2. we also need to develop the loving capacity of the heart through the practices of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.
Without the wing of love, wisdom can be a bit remote and distant. We may end up by-passing the more embodied and relational aspect of our practice and we won’t get to experience the deep freedom and well-being that the Buddha was pointing to.
The buddhist path involves developing the mind and the heart. Without both, the bird of awakening won’t take flight.
The heart-mind
The teachings of the Buddha is preserved in an ancient language called the pali language.
The pali word for “mind” is citta which actually translates better as heart-mind.
It appears that for the Buddha there was no real distinction between the heart and the mind as we often have in the west. And interestingly, the heart-mind is not believed to be located in the brain area. Rather it’s located in the heart area.
The Indian lay practitioner Dipa Ma, famous for embodying deep wisdom and deep love, is quoted for saying that she could not see the difference between mindfulness and loving-kindness.
She said….”when you are mindful aren’t you also kind…..and when we you kind aren’t you also mindful”?
For Dipa Ma there was no difference between wisdom connected with mindfulness practice and the heart of loving-kindness.
The two wings of wisdom and love, naturally came together for her within the practice of meditation.
Heartbased wisdom
We can intuit this heartbased wisdom in someone like the Dalai Lama.
It’s always a risk to place someone on a pedestal. Yet, the Dalai Lama seems to be someone who both lives from a place of great wisdom, and is relationally attuned as well.
He appears to live deeply within his heart, embodying great kindness and compassion in his interactions with others. He always appear to seek out and attend to those in a crowd that need it the most. Offering his full loving attention.
What is uplifting when watching someone like the Dalai Lama, is that he seems very happy and free when attuning to others. It is not burden for him to be kind to everyone around him. Rather it looks like he is fed by the exchange of loving energy as well.
The kindness he offers, seem to make him just as happy, as it makes those around him.
The benefits of loving-kindness
We don’t just practice loving-kindness to be good to others. It’s a training of our own heart-mind.
And with this training there is the potential for experiencing deeper happiness and freeing our heart-minds from some of the chronic stress we often feel.
The Buddha listed eleven benefits stemming from loving-kindness practice:
1. One sleeps happily…..
2. One wakes happily….
3. One has no bad dreams….
4. One is loved by others….
5. One is loved by non-humans….
6. One is guarded by devas…..
7. Fire, poison, or sword won’t touch one…..
8. One’s mind becomes concentrated quickly…..
9. One’s complexion is beautiful…..
10. One dies with a mind free from confusion…..
11. If no higher attainment is reached, one is reborn in the Brahma realms…..
Seeing for ourselves
Through his teachings, it is clear that the Buddha pointed to great benefits from practicing loving-kindness. Yet, we are not asked to believe any of his teachings with blind faith.
The Buddha often said “ehipassiko”, which means “come see for yourself”.
So the invitation is simply to explore for ourselves. And see if these teachings on loving-kindness can support a greater sense of happiness and inner freedom for each of us personally.
Definitions of loving-kindness
Interestingly, the Buddha didn’t really define loving-kindness in very specific ways. He didn’t say, this is what loving-kindness is, and this is what it is not.
Yet, based on the way he spoke about loving-kindness throughout his teachings, we can draw some conclusions about how we can understand this quality of loving-kindness.
Loving-kindness as unconditional love
He often inferred in his teachings that loving-kindness it a type of unconditional love.
Loving-kindness is not reliant upon anyone being good or somehow deserving love.
Loving-kindness doesn’t have the usual conditions attached to it, that we often put on exchanges of love in our daily lives.
We often have the unconscious idea that “if you love me, I will love you as well” or ‘If you do this for me, I will love you in return”. Or
‘If you don’t do this for me, I will pull back my love for you”.
We see this type of conditional love all the time in romantic relationships, family connections and friendships. It’s a type of bargaining, where love is conditioned upon us fulfilling each other’s expectations and needs.
There are strings attached to this type of love; it’s dependent upon the giver of love getting something back from the receiver of love.
Loving-kindness, on the other hand, is freely offered. It does not need anything in return. It’s a true gift, a true offering.
In a dhamma talk the teacher Joseph Goldstein quotes the French philosopher Montaigne describing this type of unconditional love quite well.
Montaigne says this about true friendship:
“I give myself to my friend more than I draw him to me.
I not only like doing him good.
Better than having him do me good, I would rather have him do good to himself.
He does me most good when he does good to himself”.
This quote quite well expresses the essence of unconditional love. Not needing anything in return, but simply wishing for the deep well-being of another. Being deeply contented and happy, when they are contented and happy.
Conditions on love for ourselves
Very often we have the same bargaining going on in our own self-relationship.
Our love and care for ourselves is often dependent upon us fulfilling our own expectations of ourselves.
It is conditioned upon us living up to some standard for how we should behave, how we should to act, how we should to be in the world to deserve love.
Many people struggle with some form of perfectionism. And with that comes the shadow side of unworthiness. Feeling that we are never good enough the way we are. Feeling that we are not really loveable the way we are.
Both perfectionism and low self-worth, are rooted in this type of conditioned self-love.
We feel the need to constantly perform and achieve things, so that we can feel deserving of love.
Yet, conditioned self-love is really a moving target. As soon as we reach the goal of being good enough, the goal just changes. And now there is a new thing we have to live up to, to feel worthy of love.
Self-love is the base for loving all beings
The paradox is that Buddha actually stated that there is no being more deserving of love than ourselves.
In a sutta called the Raja-sutta he said:
“ if you surveyed the entire world, you would find no one more dear than yourself.
Since each person is most dear to themselves, those who love themselves should not bring harm to anyone”
Our ability to love ourselves unconditionally, is the really the base for holding all beings with unconditional loving-kindness.
When there are parts of ourselves that we dismiss, reject or judge, we also tend to dismiss, reject and judge those qualities in others.
As we learn to hold all parts of our own experience with unconditional loving-kindness, we prepare the heart to also offer unconditional love to other beings.
Loving-kindness as boundless love
Another quality of loving-kindness that the Buddha pointed to is the quality of boundlessness.
He often spoke about extending loving-kindness out in all directions including all beings everywhere with a deep wish for their wellbeing, their ease, their safety.
In a teaching called the metta sutta, he said:
‘With loving-kindness for the whole world
One should cultivate a boundless heart,
Above, below, and all around
Without obstruction, without hate and without ill-will.
Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
As long as one is alert,
May one stay with this recollection.
This is called a sublime abiding, here and now”.
When the heart opens to unconditional love for ourselves and other beings, it naturally starts to include more and more beings. The heart can even include the ones that we usually overlook and the ones that we may dislike.
And as loving-kindness expands, the heart has the potential of entering into a subjective experience of limitlessness, for shorter or longer periods of time.
There can be an unobstructed flow of love in all directions….
Not excluding any beings….
Not preferring any beings…..
Not overlooking any beings…..
Holding all of them held within a boundless heart of loving-kindness.
There is the potential for a great sense of freedom in this experience of boundless love for all beings.
The experience of boundlessness, can eventually lead to a meditative state where the sense of separation between self and other disappears within the free flow of love.
This is what the Buddha called the liberation of the heart. Through boundless love, the heart releases into a state of deep well-being. There is an absence of the usual patterns of suffering connected with self-identity. There is a subjective state of temporary freedom.
The heart of an awakened being is said to rest permanently in this state of boundless goodwill. Yet, for all of us still on the path, we can experience moments in meditation or daily life where we can sense into this quality of boundlessness.
Friendliness
The last aspect of metta that is important to highlight is the quality of friendliness. The word metta actually has the same root as the word mitra which means friend in the pali language.
So one way to think about this is that metta is a type of love we can most easily find in friendships.
Of course friendships can also be complicated. We can feel abandoned, upset or betrayed in friendships like in any other type of relationship.
Yet, most of us can probably remember times in a friendship where we felt a quality of unconditional positive regard that we either received from a dear friend or offered to them.
Perhaps a deep unselfish wish for this friend to be happy and at ease.
Simply wanting the best for them even if that is not what we personally needed most in that moment.
The word friendliness may also feel a bit easier for us to connect with than the word love or the word kind.
When we say loving-kindness, it can sometimes feel like a high bar for us to reach for. It often brings up expectations of very warm feelings that can seem unreachable or inauthentic.
On the contrary, the word friendliness may feel more accessible for us.
Metta can sometimes be felt as a very quiet energy, where we simply hold ourselves and others with a loyal steady friendliness.
In its essence, loving-kindness is really the absence of ill-will. So it can have many flavors from a quiet benevolence towards all beings. To a very expansive sense of warmth and care. And the word friendliness can encompass all of those flavors quite well.
Loving-kindness as intention
Loving-kindness is actually an intention rather than a feeling. With loving-kindness we have a strong intention for all beings to be well, to be happy, and to be at ease.
We may recognize this from our important friendships as well. We have a strong intention to take care of the friendship. To be a good friend to our friend and to support their well-being.
Sometimes these intentions give rise to warm and expansive feelings. Other times our commitment to the relationship is felt as a more neutral benevolent energy.
We are also working with intention in our practice of loving-kindness.
Even when the practice feels more bland and dry, we can trust that we are still developing metta even when there are no sparkles and fireworks.
A natural love
In some ways metta love is a very natural kind of love.
It’s a deeply human capacity for us to feel care and love for living beings.
For sure, we don’t feel it all the time. Yet, without loving-kindness, we would not have been able to develop a societies and communities together.
As a species, we are totally reliant upon the basic goodness of others. Without the intensive care of others, we would not have survived our first years of life. And when we age, we again rely on the care of others. Our lives are deeply interconnected from the beginning to the end.
If we pay close attention, we will see that there are many moments of spontaneous kindness happening all the time.
A stranger opening a door for us. The cashier at the grocery shop smiling warmly. People helping each other on the street.
These moments can seem so ordinary that we just don’t give them attention. It’s often the drama and the difficulty that gets our attention.
Yet, if we pay closer attention, we will see many moments of spontaneous kind gestures happening all throughout the day.
Within ourselves or within other beings.
So this metta quality is not foreign to any one of us. One could say that it’s an innate potential within our human nature that we all can tap into because it’s deep within our human wiring to care about each other.
It’s just that the capacity for metta often gets clouded over by all the patterns of suffering that we all struggle with.
Fears that we won’t have enough leading to stinginess and withholding care for others.
Fears that we will lose the ones we love, leading to pulling them closer and trying control them.
Fears that what is important to us will be violated, taken away from us, leading us to react with anger in order to protect ourselves.
The hearts release
And so, from this perspective, the hearts release, is really the release of the patterns of suffering which clouds the hearts capacity for loving-kindness.
And likely, we have all had at least momentary experiences of the hearts release.
Times when we have been fully focused on supporting someone else. Or times when someone else has fully supported us.
Although the external circumstances might have been difficult, we may still have felt the great expanse connected with the exchange of loving-kindness.
The sense that the loving exchange itself was much larger than the challenge in the particular situation.
We may have felt how the connection through metta, offered a beautiful release from the usual self-concern.
Sometimes we can even feel the hearts release by witnessing loving acts in other people.
It’s not that long ago since we would come out on our lawns or balconies in the afternoons and salute the brave health care workers during the Covid crisis.
Although the situation itself was very difficult, many felt deeply touched by this shared expression of love in the midst of the difficulty.
It’s during these times, that we might intuit that the capacity for love is bigger than all the suffering of world.
And we may intuitively understand that freedom and well-being cannot possibly come through self-focus and fear. It has to come through the deep wish for the welfare of all beings everywhere.
Brahmaviharas
Metta is one of the four so-called Brahma-Viharas taught by the Buddha.
The other three are called compassion or karuna as it’s called in the pali language, appreciative joy or mudita, and equanimity or upekka.
The word brahma refers to the chief of the Gods in Hinduism, and the word vihara means divine abode or divine home. So the word Brahma-Viharas can be translated as the divine home of the Gods.
In our meditation practice, the four Brahma-Viharas can be seen as inner sanctuaries of love that we can cultivate and take refuge in.
While each of the Brahma-Viharas are often taught as separate practices, they are really just different facets of the same basic energy of loving-kindness.
So when the heart steeped in metta, meets the suffering of beings, it naturally turns to compassion.
And when metta meets good fortune in beings, it celebrates and appreciates their joy; this is mudita.
And when metta rests back into wisdom, knowing that all beings have their own path, their own life to live, it settles back into equanimity, upekka.
Like the love of a child at different stages of development
The four Brahma-Viharas has been likened to how a loving parent relates to their child at different stages of their development.
With a very young child, who is healthy and well, there is unconditional love, unconditional care for that child.
With a child who is hurt or gets sick, this love turns into compassion and a wish to offer relief for their suffering.
With the adolescent child who is out in the world, exploring and enjoying life, there is joy on their behalf. Happiness that they are happy, appreciative joy, mudita.
And with the adult child, who has moved away and started their own life, there is a letting go into equanimity, upekka. Trusting that they now have the skills and the capacity to fully care for themselves. Knowing that they now have their own life to live.
Loving kindness and the overall path
An important questions is how loving kindness fits into the overall awakening process that the Buddha was pointing to?
It is clear from reading the Buddhist texts, that enlightenment doesn’t mean that we get anything Ina conventional sense. We don’t become some great radiant being or live in an ever-lasting state of bliss.
Rather, the awakening process involves a very deep release of all the ways that we try to hold onto experiences and push away experiences.
The suffering that the Buddha was pointing to, is really a state of deep contraction. And in the contraction there is always a strong sense of “I” or “me” at the center of the experience. We are focused on what we want and what we don’t want.
With loving-kindness, we find freedom through releasing the painful self-focus and letting go into the connection with all beings.
Yet, this does not mean that we don’t take care of our own being.
As the Buddha pointed to, we are just as worthy of care as all other beings. Releasing self-focus does not mean we don’t care for ourselves.
It just means that our care is not based in the usual patterns of fear that we won’t have enough or be enough.
With loving kindness, we can feel a basic sense of safety and well-being independent how we may feel that we perform in life.
Loving-kindness as the ethical foundation
In the bigger picture of the path, loving-kindness is really the ethical foundation of the Buddhist teachings.
Sometimes we may feel that meditating and watching our own minds is a bit self-indulgent. What about other beings? What about all the suffering of the world ?
Yet, this whole path is focused on letting go of how we create suffering for ourselves and for other beings.
And we really have to work on our own minds, to be able to act in the world in skillful ways.
I once heard the teacher Gil Fronsdale say something quite funny.
He said that rather than freeing ourselves with this practice, we actually free others from us.
What he meant, I think, is that by becoming less reactive, less fearful, through our practice, others feel safer in our company.
Whether we want it or not, this practice will make us kinder and more open-hearted.
What is good for our own hearts and minds, is also good for others.
And what is good for others, is also good for us.
METTA SUTTA
Tye Buddha’s own words on loving-kindness is best described Ina sutta called the metta sutta
To reach the state of peace, those skilled in the good should be capable and upright,
straightforward and easy to speak to, gentle and not proud,
contented and easily supported,
Living lightly and with few duties, wise and with senses calmed, not arrogant and without greed for supporters, and they should not do the least thing that the wise would criticize.
[They should reflect:]
“May all be happy and secure;
May all beings be happy at heart.
All living beings, whether weak or strong,
Tall, large, medium, or short,
Tiny or big,
Seen or unseen,
Near or distant,
Born or to be born,
May they all be happy.
Let no one deceive another
Or despise anyone anywhere;
Let no one through anger or aversion wish for others to suffer.”
As a mother would risk her own life to protect her child, her only child, so toward all beings should one cultivate a boundless heart.
With loving-kindness for the whole world should one cultivate a boundless heart,
Above, below, and all around
Without obstruction, without hate and without ill-will.
Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
As long as one is alert,
may one stay with this recollection.
This is called a sublime abiding, here and now.
Whoever is virtuous, endowed with vision, Not taken by views,
And having overcome all greed for sensual pleasure will not be reborn again.