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Guided Meditation

Okay, it's good to be with you all. My name is Devin Berry. I'm actually in Northampton, Massachusetts. I'm happy to be here with the Insight Meditation Community in Redwood City. We'll do a guided meditation for about 25 minutes or so, and then I'll offer some short reflections afterwards.

So, allowing yourself to settle in, in a comfortable posture, whatever that may be. Whether that's sitting on a cushion or a chair, or lying down, or standing if you prefer. Resting the body alert, yet as comfortable as possible in this moment. And maybe gently closing the eyes.

Maybe getting a sense of the body, the body sitting on the cushion. Maybe your bottom on the cushion, or feet on the floor, hands on knees. Just any of those contacts. Getting a sense of the body resting on the earth.

Maybe that's a sense of the body breathing, expanding and contracting almost like a balloon. Perhaps noticing warm or cool air at the nostrils. Maybe one of the other anchors, rise and fall at the chest, or in and out of the belly. Allowing attention to rest there. Coming back with some sense of gentleness or kindness when the mind wanders off. Allowing the breath to be as it is.

Maybe noticing with a slight sense of curiosity or alertness any sounds in the background. Just allowing them to come and go.

May the merits of this practice benefit all beings and bring peace.

Why Metta?

Host: Thank you. Thank you very much for joining us today, Devin. Devin began his practice with Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village sangha and has been practicing insight meditation since 1999. He teaches at the Insight Meditation Society, where he was trained as a residential retreat teacher. Devin has a love of long retreat practice, as well as daily life practices that point to the liberative teachings of the Buddha. Devin co-founded both the teen and men of color sangha at the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California. He also co-founded Deep Time Liberation, an ancestral healing journey that explores the impact of ancestral legacy and intergenerational trauma on Black Americans. Devin is a board member for Insight World Aid and the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. He recently relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to western Massachusetts and teaches nationally. Devin is the father of two daughters. Thank you for joining us today, Devin. Really appreciate it.

Devin Berry: Thank you, good to be here with you all. So, I wanted to offer some brief reflections on mettā^[1].

I'll say this wasn't actually the plan coming in, but I received an email late last night with the subject heading that said "Why Mettā?". It was really late at night, and I deleted the email by mistake. So I didn't actually read the email, I just saw the subject heading, "Why Mettā?", and I think it just must have been in my mindstream. So I was thinking about it all night, and I thought about it this morning while I was out on a walk and thought this is a good inquiry, a good piece of information for reflection. It's something I realized that I haven't actually reflected on in quite a while in my own mettā practice.

Going back and looking at the email, I did in fact find it was from a yogi, a friend, really wanting to know why he would be doing this practice. Why should I do this practice? And I think for me it had been pretty easy to answer, it was just that I've said over and over again, it's this wish for goodwill and kindness for myself and for everyone else. I think he was looking for a little more than that. So I was just going back and letting that inquiry sort of land in the body to really get a sense of what it was that has driven me to this practice, or leads me to mettā practice.

I consider it a foundational practice for myself, and one that I love to share and talk about with others and encourage other folks to do. Having that "why mettā" is a really good thing just to clarify intention with any of our practices. With mettā in particular, clarifying the intention seems to be the engine. This intention is the engine that then drives the condition and action, and how we engage in the world. It's the engine that conditions the action, that colors how we engage the world.

What I've seen over the years is that there are these categories in mettā that we work with, if we work with them in a systematic way: the self; the benefactor (someone that is supportive of you, an inspiration to you, mentors, teachers, that sort of thing); dear friends; the difficult person or category (those folks that we may have a little charge with or a little difficulty or challenge with); and the neutral category. The thing that came to mind to me most is that neutral category, those folks that I don't know. I'll come back to those in a bit and how that led to some pretty profound shifts in my own practice.

The first thing I thought when this "why mettā" came up is something that I've had posted on a refrigerator for years. It is: "In this way we must train ourselves. By liberation of the mind through love we will develop love, we will practice it, we will make it both a way and a basis, take our stand upon it, store it up, and thoroughly set it going." That's from the Majjhima Nikaya^[2]. I sort of use that as an aspiration or a little mantra to actually get back to what this practice means for me, what I'm doing with this practice.

My initial difficulty with mettā was that I had lots of blocks. There was lots of anger and agitation and resentment, and it was the last thing I wanted to do. And of course, it was the thing that I probably both needed to do. So that's been a helpful support for me.

Many of the suttas mirror what I was saying about clarifying intention, and mettā as a practice that conditions action and moves the heart. A lot of that is actually mirrored in the suttas. So I wanted to look at a couple of them and actually look at the origin story of mettā itself.

One of the early suttas, and one of the first instances that we know of mettā being used or being spoken of in the suttas, is from the Samyutta Nikaya^[3]:

"So the monks went to the park of the wanderers of other sects. On arrival, they exchanged courteous greetings with the wanderers. After an exchange of friendly greetings and courtesies, they sat to one side. As they were sitting there, the wanderers said to them, 'Friends, Gotama the contemplative teaches the Dhamma to his disciples in this way, correct? Come monks, abandoning the five hindrances, the corruptions of awareness that weaken discernment, keep pervading the first direction with awareness imbued with goodwill. Likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth. Thus above, below, and all around, everywhere in its entirety, keep pervading the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with goodwill, abundant, expansive, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.'"

So we see that as one of the early instances of the Buddha and the Buddha's disciples talking about mettā and how it was practiced at that time.

Something else that interested me early on with mettā and the suttas was the origin story itself. During one of the rainy seasons, there were 500 monks (500 being lots of monks, not necessarily an exact number) in the forest. They went to practice and had been there for a few days, and all seemed to be well. They were practicing, making headway in their practice. But the tree spirits, devas, and other beings in the forest at some point became a little agitated and upset because they weren't sure how long these monks were going to be staying. So, as the story goes, they began emitting horrible smells and sounds and doing all sorts of things to scare the monks. And it worked, the monks were terrified! They all packed up, ran off, and went to see the Buddha. The Buddha, of course, sent them right back to the same forest. This time, he mentioned that they were in the forest without protection, so he sent them there with protection. What he sends them with is the Mettā Sutta^[4].

So they go back and practice. They're chanting the Mettā Sutta, and of course, this allows them to really settle into the practice. It settles the mind. The tree spirits, the devas, and all of these other creatures begin to see the monks as not being so bad, and they seem to also be affected by the mettā that's happening. They begin to actually support the practice that's happening. And of course, as in many of the stories in the suttas, the monks became enlightened.

So the protection that the Buddha actually sent the monks with was what we know as the Mettā Sutta. And the Mettā Sutta, I believe, is the only one of the Brahmavihāras^[5]—these divine abodes, these practices of the heart, as we call them in today's vernacular—with a dedicated discourse. I want to take a look at that for a second. It says:

"This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness, and who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove.

Wishing: In gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to be born—may all beings be at ease.

Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill will wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world. Spreading upwards to the skies, and downwards to the depths, outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill will.

Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision, being freed from all sense desires, is not born again into this world."

So that was the text, the crux of what the Buddha had given these monks to practice with in the forest. He gave them this protection practice. We often view mettā as being a protection practice, and I think when I look at that inquiry of "why mettā," some of that is actually to be able to protect myself. It allows us to be with mindfulness, allows the mind to settle somewhat, and allows us to be able to release the heart, to open the heart with this sense of safety that our practice helps us to cultivate.

When I was mentioning before about the neutral category—the neutral persons and beings—I really feel like I've gotten to see quite a profound shift in social connection actually out and about in the world. Really taking my practice off the cushion and into the world. Before moving to New England, I lived in San Francisco for a number of years, and all over the Bay Area. The last few years I was there before moving, I gave up my car, so I was riding Caltrain and BART^[6], riding a bike, walking, and spending a lot of time in Ubers back and forth to the airport. I actually used that as an opportunity to practice mettā with the neutral person.

Every time I got into cars, I was with someone that I didn't know and hadn't seen before. What I noticed, actually, is oftentimes I was in the car with someone that had some piece of Buddhist iconography on the dashboard or hanging from the window. So I actually used that opportunity to practice mettā for them, and occasionally would mention something about the little Buddha statue or prayer flag they had. Or quite often, someone would ask me where I was going when I was headed to the airport, and oftentimes it was to retreat. So that led to a conversation about meditation or Buddhism. For a number of folks, this was what they knew from their home countries, so it was a really beautiful connection.

What I'd seen over and over again is that this person that was neutral—someone that I didn't have a charge with one way or the other, that I didn't know, had never seen, and oftentimes would never see again—this was someone that moved from that neutral category to the friend category. Not necessarily a dear friend (in a couple of cases, yes), but they were able to move. It was based on being able to settle the mind somewhat with degrees of mindfulness, using the mettā practice, actually wishing this other person goodwill and kindness and friendliness, and being able to model some of that.

There were a couple of different occasions where the person that was driving me to my destination... we ended up stopping for coffee with one. One I actually invited to my house, to the surprise of everyone else in my house for sure! It was quite a beautiful thing to be able to pop into the back of this car with this person I'd never seen before, to be able to practice over the course of whatever that ride was—10, 20, 30 minutes—and feel like I've made a deep connection with this person upon getting out of the car.

I've seen that time and time again with the mettā practice. It just allows me to actually see the blocks that are there where I'm hesitant, or where I've created a projection or story about someone. It has also allowed me to drop an explicit antidote for fear into the mindstream, just as the Buddha sent the monks back into the forest with an antidote to fear. So those are some of the "why mettā" for me.

It also points to something else, another beautiful part of the suttas that I love: "The purpose of my teaching of the holy life of the Dharma is not for gaining merit, not for good deeds, nor rapture, nor concentration, but for the sure heart's release. This, and this alone, is the reason for the teachings."

As I stay close to that, and as we stay close to this aspiration of practicing for the sure heart's release, whatever the practice is, it allows us to connect with ourselves. It allows us to connect with others around us. And I believe, given the times that we're in—right, and it's going to be different in all times, but the times that we are particularly living in—I think this is actually quite an important and profound thing to keep close.

From the Tevijja Sutta^[7]:

"Just as if a mighty trumpeter were with little difficulty to make a proclamation to the four directions, so by this liberation of the mind through the development of loving-kindness, one sets an example, leaving nothing untouched, nothing unaffected."

This really speaks to the sending of the emotion of care and love in all directions: nothing untouched, nothing unaffected, nothing out of earshot. That helps to keep in mind that I'm not picking and choosing. And in the not picking and choosing, it doesn't matter who it is: white, male, cis bodies, Black bodies, trans bodies, queer bodies, everybody. It doesn't matter who it is.

At different times, mettā can serve as a purification practice for little blocks or things that come up in the mind that we don't particularly like, or that are difficult. It's able to point out some of those things. And as those things come up, we use skillful means to be able to hold those with mindfulness, and probably compassion as well. So at times, both of those Brahmavihāra practices end up being two sides of the same coin that I often use as something difficult or challenging comes up in the mind when I'm doing mettā, whether I'm doing it in a formal sense or whether I'm doing it off the cushion.

I think with the "why mettā," much of the "why" is around what I used to call "stealth mettā." So much of what I was talking about with the neutral person or the neutral beings was stealth mettā. It's not me sitting on the cushion, it's not us sitting on the cushion, but it's us out and about in the world practicing mettā. I think part of the "why" that I'm interested in now is really blurring that line, removing that barrier, so that my formal practice and my stealth mettā practice are one and the same. Not separating them at all. Really being able to, in the same way that we rest attention on the breath or that we rest attention on sensations, rest attention on those phrases. Rest attention on images, rest attention on the felt sense of benevolence, goodwill, kindness, friendliness. In doing that, it really blurs the line. There isn't a separation of that practice at all.

There's one other thing. There are these eleven benefits of mettā, and I believe this was later on in the Visuddhimagga^[8], which is roughly, I believe—don't quote me on this—five hundred to a thousand years after the time of the Buddha. These eleven benefits are:

We will sleep well. We will wake up feeling well. We are not likely to have nightmares. Our body relaxes and our face is joyful. Even animals and celestial beings feel drawn to us. Spirits protect us. Fire, poison, and weapons will not harm us. The mind immediately becomes calm. Our complexion brightens. We die with a clear mind, unconfused. We'll die in peace.

I've always found those interesting. The very first time I heard it, "fire, poisons, and weapons will not harm us"—right, that's not one to test out! So I think in my mind, I've really viewed it as looking at it in regards to greed, hatred, and delusion rather than some very explicit things.

But sleeping well and waking well is one that you can immediately try out and experiment with. It's one oftentimes that I use in terms of listening to the chanting of the Mettā Sutta in Pali or in English, chanting it myself, or listening to talks on the Brahmavihāras before bed. It's really interesting to see what changes occur, or noticing changes the next morning. Doing this over quite a bit of time, or actually being quite conscious and intentional upon waking to explore that inquiry of goodwill, friendliness, and benevolence to all beings. It seems that the more that we're able to string together as many moments of kindness as possible, that continuity of mindfulness is there, that continuity of mettā is there, and actually, there's a pretty profound shift that occurs. That's one you don't have to believe; that's one you try out for yourselves.

I'll leave you with this. This is another that has been supportive of me, because it feels like much of what we're creating when we're creating this field of mettā and working with this on a regular basis, is sort of working with the soil of friendliness. There's this beautiful 14th-century Tibetan poet, Longchenpa^[9]:

"Out of the soil of friendliness grows the bloom of compassion, watered by the tears of joy, sheltered under the cool shade of the tree of equanimity."

Out of the soil of friendliness (mettā), grows the bloom of compassion (karuṇā^[10]), watered by the tears of joy (muditā^[11]), sheltered under the cool shade of the tree of equanimity (upekkhā^[12]).

So holding that highest aspiration of wishing ourselves and others goodwill, friendliness, and kindness is the "why" of mettā, or has been the "why" of mettā for myself of late.

Thank you all very much. I appreciate it.