Talk Notes:
2026-08-19 Metta Sutta talk 2
Continuing our exploration of the short early Buddhist text on loving-kindness: the Metta Sutta.
Last week we look at the qualities one should bring to one's mind and heart, into one's training, to full express loving-kindness. One should practice being strenuous, upright, and sincere, without pride, easily contented, and joyous. A serious but also light and joyful way of being.
I was thinking about these qualities of being both strenuous, upright and sincere and also humble, contented and joyous on my run this morning. I've been timing myself as I run for the first time and it's been interesting to see what kind of effort allows me to run a mile in under 10 minutes.
And the Buddha cautioned about some obstacles which sound surprisingly contemporary especially given that this was written for monastics 2500 years ago. Don't get lost in the "things of the world" - our other translation has to be "unburdened by duties" for that phrase - not be too busy basically. Again in our other translation: to be "contented and easily satisfied." Basically: live simply with lots of space in your life. Room to feel and explore.
Makes sense and matches modern science and psychology around stress too doesn't it? If you're running around at a million miles an hour there's just not much space there to be thoughtful and kind - to be your best self despire all of your good intentions. There is important work to be done and we also need to learn how to slow it down. This is an important area of practice for me for sure.
But what are we really talking about with this phrase loving-kindness translating the Pali word metta? That's "loving dash kindness" - they had to create a hyphenated word in English. I always get extra interested when I learn of something in Buddhism that there isn't exactly a word for in English. It suggests that we may have a challenge here. Our language doesn't completely limit us to the concepts and experiences we have words for but it's a barrier when we don't. We know it's something we're probably pretty unfamiliar with, or at least unclear about, and we should be ready to downshift, to be humble, and to be curious. What do they mean by this? What does it actually feel like?
Loving-kindness as best I can express it is a kind of unconditional positive regard for everyone. For everyone regardless of what we think about them, regardless of what they've done or whether we like them or not. This doesn't mean everyone gets a pass, whatever, we still have value and don't support bad behaviors. But we start to see the beings themselves as Buddhas. As shining Buddhas and we feel deep deep love and warmth for every one.
And, here's an important part of this: we include ourselves fully in this. We see ourselves the same way. The development of loving-kindness is also the development of a deep and warm cherishing of our own being.
Meditation and reflection can help us to see that we may often be pretty far from this with others and ourselves. Thus the cautions about being too busy or distracted. To develop this metta we have to see and feel clearly how it goes in our minds and hearts now. That often what comes up is judgement, harsh criticism, feeling like that person doesn't measure up, that we don't measure up. Studying loving-kindness is also studying all of the versions of hatefulness. Of harshness. Of meanness. Of our tight and critical edges. And feeling how dug in those qualities of mind can be. How we justify them and feed them and hold onto them. A lot of humility and patience is required and the ability to be with our own woundedness and pain.
Sometimes you hear about loving kindness and the like and it sounds like you're just supposed to smile a lot and talk softly and be sweet. I think it's a much deeper and more complex thing than that. It's also about working with our deepest conditioning. Unpacking and freeing ourselves from the many many ways we've been told we're no good; or told those people over there are no good. At the center of the Buddhist analysis of aversive condition are a set of 3 powerful mind states: greed & desire, hatred & anger, and confusion. Part of our studies and particularly with loving-kindness is to befriend those parts of ourselves and make space for healing. You can see how this all fits in with the practice of precepts too.
The unconditional positive regard we are growing and nurturing with loving-kindness can manifest in a lot of different ways. After last week's talk someone asked me, "Does practicing loving kindness mean we're supposed to make everyone happy?" I was glad he asked. The short answer is, "no," everyone's on their own life's journey and your not responsible for their happiness; but the fuller answer also includes a "yes" - every little bit more patience, kindness, and love we generate absolutely helps all beings be happy. And as we work with our minds and hearts to be more joyful and accepting we're a lot more likely to notice opportunities that are graceful and do-able to support others in their happiness. I just wouldn't want us to get the idea that now my mission is to run around like a puppy trying to make everyone we meet happier.
And sometimes the greatest gift is the gift of space isn't it? To acknowledge someone deeply, to appreciate them, and to leave them be to find their way. To offer them that respect and trust. To refrain from advice giving or lecturing. And to release from ideas we get that we know what someone else needs. This is a another challenge as you get into the spiritual teacher racket. It might seem like you're supposed to be able to figure out what people need and tell them and all will be well.
And it's important to understand that these positive qualities like loving-kindness, generosity, patience, and compassion are already within us. Our work in the practice is to cultivate them, practice them, strengthen them. In some ways that's just a totally organic process. Not a special project we take up. We steep ourselves in deep power of continuous practice of zazen, our ritual life, being in community, meeting with a teacher and so on.
And we can take up deliberate contemplations and meditations that can strengthen these positive qualities too. It's a both-and: just practice, just live as best you can humbly and with an open mind and they grow organically; AND deliberately cultivate and nurture them. As well as studying the powerful dynamics of their opposites. Be be more loving is also understand your non-loving mind moods and beliefs and mental states too.
We know the earliest monks and nuns with the Buddha contemplated all of this. They weren't just trying to quiet the mind down to stillness and check out into nirvana. The earliest teachings mention bringing forth loving kindness - usually as part of a list of 4 interconnected mind states. The other 3 are compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. The set of 4 are often called the Heavenly Abodes - the Pali there is Brahma Viharas. A vihara is a temple and Brahma is the head of the gods in the heavens. So for your life to be an expression of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity is to be living in heaven on earth.
In our metta sutta, which scholars think was probably written a little bit after the time of the Buddha we have this fabulous prayer for loving kindness:
"May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety, all living beings, whether weak or strong, in high or middle or low realms of existence. Small or great, visible or invisible, Near or far, born or to be born, may all beings be happy."
You could chant just that section as a prayer, as a mantra, see if you can really mean it.
And then the sutra has another little section of practical advice - here starting to be a bit more descriptive of what the life of a deeply loving practitioner looks like:
"Let no one deceive another nor despise any being in any state. Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things."
And probably a little later in the Buddhist story a particular set of meditations emerged which I thought we try now. This the the loving kindness meditation, the Pali here would be Metta Bhāvanā. Giving birth to metta. This meditation makes use of a few elements: visualization, feelings, and language. You bring to mind particular people in your life and tune into the feelings you feel with these interpersonal relationships we already have. It can be easier to touch into a feeling of unconditional love when you're tuned into a really positive and loving relationship you already have in your life. And then the language element is a way of focussing the energy of loving-kindness in the form of positive wishes for that person. These are the phrases of loving-kindness. Ultimately it's nice to come up with language that really lands for you with these phrases but as I lead these I'll offer some standard kinds of phrases as a way to get started.
Let's have a little stretch and resettle ourselves for meditation:
[15-20 minute metta meditation]
How was that? Anything anyone would like to share - in the room or online? - let's get the handheld mic out so the online people can hear you guys - they can only hear me at the moment.
I'm particularly interested in your actual experience in the meditation. We have all kinds of ideas about all of this stuff - I'm one of the worst of the bunch there, going on and on about all of my ideas about the Dharma - but where the rubber hits the road is in what we actually feel and experience.
[Some discussion and reporting back, do inquiry with people]
And to finish going through the Metta Sutta before we close. Next there's another kind of prayer around broadening our loving kindness out into the world and some beautiful encouragement around continuous practice.
"Suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around, without limit. So let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours, let one practice the way with gratitude."
And then we close with something like what the results of all of this might be:
"Not holding to fixed views, endowed with insight, freed from sense appetites, one who achieves the way will be freed from the duality of birth and death."
This very last line is a bit of a Mahayana reworking of the original which our other translations has as "will not be born again into this world." And there's a whole conversation there about Buddhist cosmology and how the vision of Buddhist practice evolved over the millenia. Either way as the root it means freedom. Freedom from being caught in suffering.
