Posted By Mahabodhi on Feb 21, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

9 minute read

This excerpt is from the chapter ‘Buddhist Practice’ and it explores the metta bhavana meditation practice in its practical aspect. It follows on from ‘Day-to-day mindfulness.’

The Metta Bhavana

I want to move on now to the Metta Bhavana: the ‘root’ meditation in a set of four called the Brahmaviharas or ‘divine abodes.’ Metta is Pali for ‘Universal Loving Kindness’ and bhavana means cultivation.’ I explored the principles behind the emotion in Chapter 1; and in ‘Kindness as Constructive Imagination.’ It is worth reiterating that metta is an emotion and that the practice consists in whatever creative action will systematically bring that emotion about. It doesn’t matter, for instance, that we care about or are sincere in our wish to develop loving kindness: this may be no more than virtue-signalling (to ourselves and others) what a good person we would like to be. No, what matters is that we are effective in our practice and come to actually care what happens to ourselves and every ‘other’ in a real, powerfully passionate and robust way. The method doesn’t really matter: it is all about trying out different things until something works.

There are, therefore, a few common methods that people tend to use to stimulate the emotion:

• Reciting the phrases: May I be well; May I be happy; May I be free from suffering; May I make progress’ and waiting for an appropriate response
• Imagining the person at their best; or during a happy time, and wishing on them a similar experience today
• Using imagery: such as imagining a flower opening in our heart; or a warm colour, symbolizing love, flooding the world

And, based the idea explicated in ‘Kindness as Constructive Imagination:’ that our emotional response to a person in conditioned by our view of what they are, I suggest a further method:

• Aligning our view of each person with what they actually are: a living being, with hopes and fears, who is sensitive to their experience, who wants to be happy and not to suffer

Structured practice or ‘radiation method’

There are two basic ways to do the practice: the structured practice in five stages or the ‘radiation method.’ In the former loving kindness is cultivated firstly towards oneself; then towards a good friend; a neutral person; a person we find difficult; and in the final stage we extend it out to encompass more and more living beings. In the radiation method we simply radiate it out to living beings in all directions.

Here then are instructions for the practice of the metta bhavana in five stages:

The Metta Bhavana using phrases

A simple way of practising the metta bhavana is we sit comfortably—as outlined in the grounding meditation: we tune into how we are feeling; and—when we are ready—we drop the following phrases into our minds, ‘May I be well; May I be happy; May I be free from suffering; May I make progress’ and we wait for an emotional response that is in line with the sentiments expressed.

Stage 1 – Cultivating kindness towards oneself

In the first stage, we cultivate loving kindness towards ourselves. People can feel awkward about this stage, as they often have been the recipient of negative conditioning around self love: but the fact is, if we cannot care for ourselves, it is difficult for us to genuinely care for others. We have to treat ourselves, as Jordan Peterson says in 12 Rules for Life, as someone [we] are responsible for helping. In this stage it may help to spend time dwelling just on what kindness is and feels like in experience: it may be helpful to recall times when another was kind to us: what did that feel like; what exactly was the person doing that made them kind. Probably, they were paying us close attention, for our own sake; and were treating our experience as if it were something precious.We have to identify what kindness is before we can truly cultivate it. And we need to purge ourselves of its weaker near enemies, such as sentimentality.

Stage 2 – Cultivating kindness towards a good friend

In the second stage, we cultivate loving kindness towards a good friend: in order to keep things simple we are advised to choose somebody who is roughly the same age; whom we are not sexually attracted to; and who is still alive, in order to not confuse metta with feelings that arise in relation to parents, offspring or partners. The challenge in this stage is to try to see life from our friend’s perspective, rather than our own. The trap with ‘the friend’ is that our friends are often thus because as individuals we find them pleasureable to be around ; and often useful.  But we need to get beyond this self-reference and want our friend to be well purely for their own sake.

Stage 3 – Cultivating kindness towards a neutral person

In the third stage, we cultivate loving kindness towards a neutral person: this is a person towards whom we have no particular feelings; they might be somebody who works in the local shop or drives the bus: one of many millions of people who are neutral to us; instead of seeing them as an object, we try to see them as a living being in need of care and support. In this stage we are putting the fact of the world of anonymous living beings as living beings on the agenda.

Stage 4 – Cultivating kindness towards a difficult person

In the fourth stage, we try to cultivate kindness towards someone whom we find difficult: maybe someone we are not getting on with at the time. Maybe at first we don’t choose our absolute worst enemy, just someone who we are having some difficulties with at the moment. And we try to see them as a person in need of care and support, rather than as an object in our way.

Stage 5 – Cultivating kindness towards all sentient beings

In the fifth and final stage, we bring to mind the four people was focused on in the earlier stages, and try to equalize the degree of kindness we feel for each. Here we are trying to not have any preferences between living beings, by reflecting on the fact that all living beings are in the same situation: all want to thrive; none want to suffer, so we should treat them as such.

We then expand our metta and sphere of concern outwards: we bring to mind those near us: in our house; in the local vicinity; in our town; our region; our country; the wider continent; and we gradually move out to the whole world; even to the universe beyond, sending our metta to more and more people; including the young; the old; the rich and poor; people from different races, social groups and political persuasions; including animals, birds; fish; insects; finally extending it to all sentient beings everywhere throughout the universe.

The Metta Bhavana through imagining a happy time

Another popular method is to focus on imagining ourself or another at times of peak happiness; and wishing that time to ‘come back’ for them. When we were really happy, what was it we were doing? What precisely was the situation? Were we surrounded by people, or were we quietly alone? What were we thinking about at the time?

Stage 1 – Cultivating kindness towards oneself

My ‘best time’ was when I arrived in my first year at Manchester University—where I had come to study physics in 1973; I would sit people watching for hours on end in the Student’s Union Coffee Bar, revelling in the buzz and tempted by the vast array of activities on offer. Among other things, I learned Transcendental Meditation and travelled around America. Being essentially a populist, I one thing I enjoy is facilitating experiences for numbers of people: I have therefore been—at various times—a mural painter; a ‘crowd-shaman’ at Buddhafield Festival; and a meditation teacher at a large Buddhist Centre and online. I feel in my element when people around me are enabled. Practising the metta bhavana using this method often spontaneously cultivates metta because being reminded of peak experiences often ‘wakes up’ that sense of what is possible in life; which all to often we easily forget.

Other people’s ‘happy times’ might be quite different to my own.

Stage 2 – Cultivating kindness towards a good friend

In the second stage—practicing this version of the metta bhavana, I would try to imagine what the ‘peak experiences’ my friend might enjoy and try to wish them to ‘come back’ for them. My friend’s personality is often quite different from my own, and so they might be more into something like bungee-jumping or skiing. It is an interesting and empathy-expanding challenge to put oneself in another person’s shoes: and to accurately imagine the details of what happiness might consist in for them.

The subsequent stages in this version of the metta bhavana follow the same methodology.

‘Pushing the person from behind’ towards happiness

A variation on this method which I find helpful is to imagine standing behind the person (even oneself) and to imagine oneself pushing them from behind in the direction of happiness. The advantage of this variation is that it is moral visceral: it speaks of metta as not just involving armchair well-wishing, but as actually having an effect. We can point the person in the right direction but ultimately they need to develop the will themselves to make their life better: a will that is not always present.

The Metta Bhavana using imagery

Another method is to use an image to stimulate metta. Classics include imagining a flower opening in the heart or a warm red glow spreading out to encompass living beings in the same way we practise the five stages. An opening lotus flower in our heart might represent an unfolding receptivity within us towards ourselves and other living beings.

The colour of love is usually understood to be red: thus the dark red Buddha Amitabha represents metta embodied to its ultimate degree. His name means ‘Infinite Light’—which suggests an infinitely intense red light illuminating the furthest reaches of the Universe, bathing living beings in care; helping them feel secure and affirmed. We might imagine a warm red glow in our heart, that envelops each being in the four stages in turn, and then radiates out into the universe, encompassing more and more beings. Colour may be only symbolic, but it can be very potent in bringing our emotions on board.

The Metta Bhavana through the transformation of views

The final method involves working on our view of each person. In each stage we work out what the actual emotion is that we feel towards the person—do we feel warmth towards them, indifference or criticism. We then need to look at where that emotion had come from. Did it arise because we were seeing them as a living being; an object; or even an object in our way? Having assessed where the emotion originated, we then try and change our view of the person to make it more in line with ‘Reality.’ Once we can see them as a living being, we then naturally will want to care for them.

Problems with the will

I have noticed that many people have a problem with the metta bhavana around using their will.

Jnanavaca, from the London Buddhist Centre, ran several courses entitled: ‘Who hates the metta bhavana?’[3] to address widespread difficulties that many people faced with the practice—from reluctance to practise it, to giving up on it completely. Two suggestions he came up with were—among others—a) to forget everything one knows about the practice; and b) to give up on its bhavana (cultivation) aspect.

I think at the root of the problem many people face in relation to the metta bhavana is a confusion around will and emotion. Metta is an emotion—it is essentially the desire for a person’s happiness; wanting a person’s happiness—but in their effort to cultivate the emotion people use willpower—they try to ‘squeeze out’ the emotion, like toothpaste. And it doesn’t work.

In the Cetana Sutta, the Buddha states that it is not by an act of will that a desirable result is achieved—for instance we cannot force ourselves to be remorseful, it happens naturally when our mind is in an ethical state and we have done something wrong:

‘For a person endowed with virtue, consummate in virtue, there is no need for an act of will, “May freedom from remorse arise in me”. It is in the nature of things that freedom from remorse arises in a person endowed with virtue, consummate in virtue.’[4]

Volition or will is:

‘The cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving … Volitional processes can be applied consciously, or they can be automatized as habits over time.’[5]

When we are dealing with our emotions—and trying to transform them to be more skilful, it needs to be a natural—not forced —process. So maybe we need to distinguish between volition—the cognitive process outlined above—and emotion. There is a difference between wanting to cultivate metta—as an idea, and actually having it—the former is volition, the latter emotion. Will and emotion are different things.

The people on the Who hates the metta bhavana? course obviously have the idea in their heads of wanting to cultivate metta—they have the volition, but this desperate—and slightly self-oriented need—gets in the way of them developing the actual emotion.

Catch-22: wanting versus willing

Consider what happens when we try to transform a behaviour that we are unhappy or embarrassed about—for instance, smoking: the behaviour we wish to overcome is driven by wanting—i.e, wanting to smoke—and our wish to stop is also driven by wanting—wanting to stop. When we oppose one desire with another, we call that will. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves in the Catch-22 situation of trying to transform our emotions using our emotions: an impossible situation akin to trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.[6]

The danger with Jnanavaca’s suggestion to give up on the cultivation (bhavana) aspect of metta is that we abandon the practice altogether, as if metta were not somehow indispensable to the spiritual life. It isn’t so much that we should give up on the cultivation aspect of the metta bhavana, but instead make that cultivation effective—and this of course includes giving up on wilful cultivation—which is ineffective: forcing things to happen in an unnatural way just doesn’t work.

We should, instead, look to the conditions that will bring the desired emotion about. In the case of cultivating metta, this will be through using constructive imagination to transform our view of the person to be in line with the Reality; or it may be through finding inspiration in a kindly mentor or archetypal Buddha figure. In the case of addiction, it will be through abandoning ‘self-will run riot’ and relying instead on the guidance of some form of ‘higher power’ within a Twelve Step programme, such as Alcoholics Anonymous.

The chapter  goes on to explore ethical feeling.

[1]  ‘Na jatahi na gottena jacca hoti brahmano. Yamhi saccanca dhammo ca so suci so’va brahmano.’ Dhammapada. Chapter 26. Verse 11.

[2] Kamalashila. (2012) ‘Buddhist Meditation: Tranquillity, Imagination and Insight.’ Windhorse. Chapter 9.

[3] ‘Who hates the metta bhavana?’ London Buddhist Centre. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwt81mQ8kjRMrrSjQ0UKAvfjVNpcBB0l8

[4] Ratnaguna and Sraddhapa. (2016) Great Faith, Great Wisdom: Practice and Awakening in the Pure Land Sutras of Mahayana Buddhism. Windhorse. p104.

[5] Volition (psychology). Wikipedia. Accessed 18 July 2022.

[6] The expression ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ was originally used to refer to a task that’s impossible. It’s believed to come from the German author Rudolf Erich Raspe, who wrote about a character who pulled himself out of a swamp by pulling his own hair. ‘You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ Justin Pot. December 3 2021. Zapier. https://zapier.com/blog/you-cant-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps/