Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Buddha's Words on Loving-Kindness
accesstoinsight.org
accesstoinsight.org
There are several other passages from the oldest strata of Pāli texts, e.g., the SNP (Sutta Nipata) and some of the connected discourses (Samyutta Nikāya) that talk more about metta, a rich and complex tapestry that paints a picture of the actual and original intent behind the word or phrase.
This talk by Prof. John Peacock has some good insights into the phrase mettā, and provides a good overall context.
https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/2600
Mettā is part of the four brahmavihārās or practises to cultivate wholesome states of mind, the others being karuṇā (compassion & kindness for oneself and for others), muditā (simplistically translated as "empathetic joy") and upekkhā (equanimity).
I'm atheist, pretty sure reincarnation is bullshit, but the method described in this sutta works. In mundane terms, you can train your brain to be happier and more joyful by those simple visualizations.
I'm not quite sure what is the role of spreading kindness in all directions, perhaps it somehow ties our perception of space and time, which is always present, with good feelings - what fires together, wires together - making them more likely to appear in future.
https://www.integrateddaniel.info/
https://www.ecstaticintegration.org/p/daniel-ingram-on-emerg...
If you take everything as a task to be done and life as goals to achieve, then that might be a good book
Otherwise Reddit’s /r/meditation, /r/streamentry or just the Calm app might be better starting points
Love Alan Watts lectures, the way he explains things they just seem to make sense. He’s very good at translating the meaning of eastern philosophies into western concepts
rosemary-steve.org
The word Sangha gets bandied about like nobodies business these days.. and nobody seems to care either.. talk about cultural appropriation! In my opinion westerners who are not ordained and are not true aupasikas have no right to use this word, but alas they do, in droves. I think in this context it means Maha-Sangha .. that is 8 pairs or individuals 4 types of special people:
Supatipanno Bhagavato sāvakasaṅgho. Ujupatipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṅgho. Ñāyapatipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṅgho. Sāmīcipatipanno bhagavato sā- vakasaṅgho. Yadidaṁ cattāri purisayugāni aṭṭha purisapuggalā esa bhagavato sāvakasaṅgho. Āhuneyyo. Pāhuneyyo. Dakkhineyyo. Anjalikaranīyo. Anuttaraṁ puññakkhettaṁ lokassā’ti.
Of pure conduct is the Order of Disciples of the Blessed One. Of upright conduct is the Order of Disciples of the Blessed One. Of wise conduct is the Order of Disciples of the Blessed One. Of generous conduct is the Order of Disciples of the Blessed One. Those four pairs of persons, the eight kinds of individuals, that is the Order of Disciples of the Blessed One. They are worthy of offerings. They are worthy of hospitality. They are worthy of gifts. They are worthy of reverential salutations. The incomparable field of merit for the world.
That is where to start in my opinion. find the true Sangha. there are millions of Buddhist Monks, especially in Asia. I have heard though unfortunately there are only a few thousand perhaps, a handful, practising the true way now. That sadly is the times we are living in. The end of days.. But that is where to start in my opinion. Good luck finding them.
_/!\_
It is fairly easy to conclude that existence is bullshit. The evidence is that the whole world is a soup of atoms and any particular group of atoms that believes it is distinct from the rest is just confused.
If that makes sense to you, then either you don't exist now and you won't exist again ... or you do exist now and you will exist again. Or, to repeat that with different words, if you exist now you will reincarnate later. This perspective meshes extremely neatly with Buddhist philosophy. Although the idea that people can remember past lives is highly suspect.
how do you get started with this? any particular resource? what do you exactly do when practicing this meditation?
First impression may not be great. It's kind of cringey at first. It helps to think about this on biological level - there are parts of brain that give meaning to our lives, and this is how we train them.
One type is to envision the pain and suffering of people and respond compassionately in a way that eliminates their pain and suffering. When I was suffering terribly myself I constantly wished for others who were in similar difficulties to be freed immediately. This actually made me feel a lot better. The problem is that for some people dwelling on suffering is a real bummer.
The second type is similar to the text linked above: cherishing all beings as they are, as if they were your very children that you love so so much. Lately, my meditations have started to transition toward this type and I've felt spontaneous feelings of bliss and love toward others that grows the more I do it. And this kindness is naturally starting to come out in my behavior and interactions with others.
In both cases, the meditations develop "bodhicitta", which is a word that describes the attitude of wishing others well. It's said that this attitude, when trained, nourished, and grown is the very cause of all happiness and when perfected causes happiness to bloom uninterruptedly. Therefore, it is an extremely beneficial and powerful practice.
It's fantastic to see this text linked on Hacker News even without much context. Wishing you all well!
To my understanding, Compassion / Lovingkindness are linked and often arise together, and it's a bit odd to wish to separate them too strongly: When contemplating other's and out own Dukkha, Compassion may arise, wishing for it to cease. Lovingkindness may then arise, wishing for there to be happiness and peace instead. They both work together.
By contemplating Dukkha we better understand this Characteristic of existence, and develop Compassion/Lovingkindess. To avoid getting too "down" by too much Dukkha meditation, Sympathetic Joy with one's and other's good qualities or good actions we can brighten the mind. and Equanimity helps us from falling into grief/anger on one side, and euphoria and avoiding the truth of existence on the other.
So the Brahma Viharas work together and aren't too artificially / forcefully separated.
Thich nhat hanh had a good introductory article I believe it’s this one https://tricycle.org/magazine/cultivating-compassion/
Abhidhamma Lessons: A Top-Down Approach Using Computer Science
Author is a former programmer who uses computer science methods to discuss Buddhism's approach to understanding the mind and reality. I found it interesting!
https://www.compellingtruth.org/lovingkindness.html
We are undeserving, evil people who deserve justice for our sins. Instead, God offers us a chance to repent and follow Him out of pure grace. He makes a covenant backed by His own name. Within that covenant, He preserves us in eternal life forever while using us to His glory in this life. If we fall, He’ll discipline us but never let us go. That’s out of His love and character.
This undeserved grace for those following Jesus Christ is what the Bible calls hesed, or lovingkindness.
I'm not an evil person.
In your case, you can test yourself using Romans 1:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A18-3...
Have you ever lied, stolen, cheated, shown apathy, lusted, or wished evil on someone? Have you rejected the true God or tried to live your own way instead of His? These are evil per the God that defines what morality is.
“The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God us eternal life in Jesus Christ.”
Fortunately for you and I, the only good person to ever live… tempted in all ways we are but having committed no sin… earned God’s favor for you, died for your sins, was raised again, and offered you eternal life in His name. You just have to repent and put your trust in what He did. He’ll also transform you from the inside out when the Spirit of God dwells in you.
More broadly, I don't think "evil" is a useful word; it refers to (a) the embodiment of everything that is irremediably bad, and (b) to people or actions that are irremediably bad. I don't think such people and actions exist, and I don't think pure badness is embodied anywhere.
So I think the word has no referent.
Whereas, while we were still sinners (enemies of God), Christ died for us. He laid His life down for us. He left everything He had in heaven to save those He loved. At every point, we were undeserving enemies. If we repent and trust Him, we still keep turning on Him and failing. Yet, nobody can snatch us out of His hand.
That’s grace upon grace that God lavishes upon those who believe in Jesus Christ.
[1] https://open.spotify.com/track/1bBMoUSm7Oc07l3JdQoP4g?si=671...
Sadly though most Buddhist laypeople are not vegan, though some popular teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh did promote minimising the suffering of animals via such practical means as making vegan choices..
Regarding meditation, Ajahn Brahm from the Thai Forest Tradition has taught extensively not just focused Metta Meditation, but how Metta (i.e. love/acceptance) towards the present moment is a key part of other techniques like meditation of breathing. One of his books, "Kindfulness", really gets into this.
It doesn't work for me, of course; I don't believe in rebirth.
Yet all of them are mired in delusion and most of the time do things which go the opposite way of generating real happiness, we all do.
Everyone is mired in delusion and most of the time react to feelings of anger and craving (vedana), which are generated based on their history, social norms and whatnot. They are just being manipulated by those all the time, unless they're very mindful of what's happening in their mind temporarily. Realizing this you can't really hate anybody, and in fact you realize they are 100% like you.
That's not what I was saying; I was commenting on that suggested technique for developing metta, in particular, which is dependent on belief in rebirth.
Are you still able to generate loving-kindness in yourself? If so, then those teachings that don't work for you don't matter.
I suppose one could work from hatred; people generally know if they hate something. So if one has reduced the incidence of hatred, then perhaps you could say the technique worked. I used the technique (along with others) over a period of a couple of decades, during which I "suspended belief" concerning rebirth. But over a couple of decades, it's quite possible that my personality changed for other reasons - such as other techniques, or watching my children grow up, or simply maturing.
I can't help but feel happiness and goodwill for a cute cat or bunny. Once I have that feeling, I can pay attention to it, keep it going, sit with it, or wish that feeling for myself or to others. If I lose it, I just bring up an endearing image or thought of the cat/bunny/my kiddo and pay attention to that feeling again.
I don't think loving kindness manifests when I smile at someone; I think it manifests when I forgive them for some outrage that has left me seething. That is, I don't associate loving-kindness particularly with good feelings.
My friend, if this is truly the state of your relationship with your children then I'm so sorry. I wish you a swift resolution to any and all ill-will.
> I don't think loving kindness manifests when I smile at someone; I think it manifests when I forgive them for some outrage that has left me seething. That is, I don't associate loving-kindness particularly with good feelings.
It sounds like loving-kindness practices don't work particularly well for you but forgiveness does so that's great. Still, I hope you get to feel a sense of warm-heartedness toward yourself and others. Even the Dalai Lama, one of the preeminent Buddhist figures in the world, says his true religion is kindness.
> Warm-heartedness is my favourite subject. As human beings our mothers gave birth to us and we survived because of her care and affection. Warm-heartedness is not only the key factor for human survival, it’s also the basis for being able to live as peaceful, happy human beings.
1. You visualize a cute bunny (for example).
2. You recognize that visualizing a cute bunny makes you a bit happier.
3. You realize that you can influence your mood by visualizing cute things.
4. You train it to make it stronger and more reliable.
Metta is one of the four Brahma Viharas (foundations of Brahma). Another is karuna, or compassion; wishing others not to suffer. The standard practice in Tibet for generating compassion is called tong len ("sending and receiving", sorry, I don't know any Sanskrit word for it). You imagine someone else's suffering as a black cloud, breathe it in, and breathe out all your goodness and happiness as a white cloud, which you imagine going into them. It's a simple bolt-on for ordinary meditation on the breath. [Edit] If you have a real, suffering person to practise on, I was told that helps a lot.
Practising tong len is liable to cause depression in the practitioner, or so I was told. It's not tantric, you don't need permission to do it; but it's probably not a good idea to try it unless you have an experienced meditation instructor.
"Feeling good" is not a sign of progress in meditation.
I had a real suffering person to practice on (me) which is why I'm quite certain about what I wrote. If you have capability to improve your mood on demand, your entire approach to life changes. You can be selfless, take risk, work long hours, even if entire world collapses, you will always have metta to support you. This is how I understand equanimity at the moment.
What's the exact cosmology again?
1. Every being is likely to be your mother
2. Every being has been your mother with certainty (beginningless time)
So it's 2.
And for clarity, the view is that time is both beginningless and endless.
One thing that's interesting is that Indian philosophy of the 800-400 BCE era had a concept congruous to the Greek atomos, the kanu. One of the neat things about kanu is that it knows where it's been, in a moral sense. This was posited as one explanation for reincarnation, all your bits fly around according to these moral laws, creating new points of awareness. Bad people burn all their energy whoring around, drinking, eating, so the kanu don't have a place to go (pigs, lower castes, etc), but good people spread their lives around, and kanu get higher life forms to coalesce into (brahmins, nice people, gods, etc). Obviously there's no morals at the Planck length, but it's an interesting notion.
Auschwitz ashes in our lungs, tears of Christ in our blood. One of Buddha's "memories" of past lives was as a man who sacrificed himself to feed a starving tiger and cubs. I've always thought that locking corpses in eternal tupperware was a little creepy.
Always keep in mind, though, at the heart of a lot of Indian philosophy is a certain brutality. I mean, the word for heaven is "non-existence"; as an old professor of mine[2] once quipped, "that's a perfectly reasonable posture if you've ever been to Bangalore". The entire notion of "higher" and "lower" life forms - including different kinds of PEOPLE - sort of gives away the game. Important to remember that AAALLL of these old systems were built to justify the civilization they emerged from, and it wasn't always purty.
[1] Whatever that is. Some sort of recursive system that simulates outcomes for a given range of choices? That seems way too pat.
[2] Who was also a minister, so there's that. He already believed in a Big Rock Candy Mountain with fluffy beards and chubby wingbabies.
It's been described to me as a pathetic, insignificant thing, absolutely in need of a defender. Western (or I should say, english-speaking) Buddhist teachers call it "ego", but I'm pretty sure that's wrong, in that Freud and Jung coined the term "ego" (they had different definitions, but it's not the self from Buddhism that either of them defined).
I'd recommend picking up a good survey, some I remember as an undergrad were :
The First Cities, D. Hamblin
The Wonder that was India, A. Bassam
Indian Atheism, D. Chattopadhyaya, who also did a survey on Lokayata, an early Materialist movement in the subcontinent.
If you look at a bicycle wheel in motion, you don't see the spokes. If you and everyone you knew had only ever seen wheels in motion, you'd talk about a semi transparent field from the centre to the rim. You would all describe the same phenomena.
I was at a meditation retreat, and I caught a glimpse of the spokes. That's how I've explained it to others.
Does the self seem real? Yes. Is it a useful construct? Can we predict it and manipulate it? Yes. Once you've followed the meditation practices, do you see that it's an illusion? That was absolutely my experience.
Which is a round about way of saying, the conflict you perceive in Buddhism is rooted in the ongoing struggle to perceive the nature of the self, and to notice when your practice becomes entangled in its illusions.
Transcribing buddha-dharma has long been praised as a meritorious act. In the modern era, it'd be hard to beat John Bullitt in his practice of it.
Seriously. There are a lot of Sutta's. Wondering if one deals with regular deadlines/stress.
I've seen this objection so many times that I'll say it first: detachment is not apathy, it's not "not caring about the project anymore".
Just in the heat of the moment, hard to stay detached.
Sometimes the Suttas, can be a bit 'distant' to everyday life. Hard to relate them back to the hear and now.
And it makes sense that modern problems aren't well treated by sutras or vedic texts. Deadlines are ever shortening, everything is vying for our attention. A project that we're very attached to because the failure of delivering means you could get sacked (usually, our minds jump straight to the worst case: we WILL get sacked) is probably something unheard of in the times of the Buddha. But it's just hard-mode life compared to what they wrote. The patterns are the same, but you have less HP, and you're full of debuffs. Under that lens, those texts are mostly timeless and independent of which era you read it on. If you understand that you're working on a team, that your agency is only one part of the success. There's all sort of factors that go into the success or failure of the project, and all you can do is the work you've been assigned to. That's where you can care and do the best work that you can while still being dispassionate about the project's success or failure, and thus less affected by the pressures of the deadlines, less stressed by the pressures from the higher ups, the estimates you know are completely wrong, etc.
Of course, all of this is assuming you're working on the kind of project I'm imagining, but it should apply to other things too