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Guided Meditation: Warm-hearted Attention

With a warm welcome, good evening. Good evening. Thank you for letting me know that there was no sound. We're all in this together. I think that you can... yes, okay, good, you can hear now.

So to begin our guided meditation, just to sit and know we're sitting. Feeling the pressure of the chair or cushion against the body. Feeling connected here, and checking in with the sound.

[Laughter]

You can check in with the sound or with the body. Is there a way that the body might feel a little bit more balanced, or connected, or here? Is there a warm-hearted, gentle way in which you can just finish arriving in this moment?

And it might be that there are areas in the body that have some tension, some tightness. Can we bring a warm-hearted awareness to those areas? Some caring attention. Whether it's a knee, or a back, or maybe just tension in the shoulders, around the eyes, or in the jaw—can we allow it to be there?

So often we have aversion to these uncomfortable experiences, of course we do. We explore and experiment: what is it like if we don't have the aversion to uncomfortable bodily experiences? Can we greet them? "Hello, you again."

Bring in that same warm-hearted attention to the sensations of breathing. Feeling the expansion and contraction that goes with inhales and exhales.

And when the mind wanders, again, an opportunity for some warm-hearted attention. Non-aversion, just noticing the mind has wandered, and begin again with the sensations of breathing.

Is there a way in which we can practice mindfulness with an attitude of warmth and care? Whatever might be arising, can we have an openheartedness? Jack Kornfield describes mindfulness as loving awareness. Can we practice with loving awareness?

To meditate with a sense of loving awareness, having an attitude of warmth to our mindfulness, helps support and nourish not only our meditation practice but our inner life. So that we might show up in the world having this foundation of warm-heartedness, so that our practice might be for the benefit of ourselves, but also for the benefit of those with whom we come into contact. So that all beings may be free from suffering, without exception.

Metta as a Parami

I feel like tonight's a little bit of a comedy of errors. I didn't get the sound right, and maybe you guys didn't notice, but the bell fell off of where I'm sitting here.

So welcome, welcome everybody. It's nice to be here. I'm saying "here," right? Of course, I'm at the IMC by myself, and I'm imagining that soon we'll be practicing together. I don't know exactly when. There was talk that we were going to open on August 1st, but now it seems that the county might have placed some restrictions asking for mask-wearing indoors. So we haven't made any changes to that plan about August 1st, but we might. So keep an eye on the website if you're planning on coming; we might postpone our opening for a little bit.

Okay, so today I'd like to continue my discussion of the paramis^[1], these ten qualities that are often expressed in our daily life—not exclusively, but can be expressed in our daily life as a support for awakening, as support for liberation, as a support for greater peace and freedom in our lives.

And so this word parami, it is related to the meaning of being taken to the far shore. Something taken the farthest has a sense of completeness, has a sense of the highest state possible. And that's why sometimes it's translated as the "perfections."

Sometimes I'm a little hesitant to use this expression "perfections" because implicit in that is imperfection. This perfection feels like it's just such a high ideal that we might even feel a little bit dissuaded from even working on it at all. But parami, maybe instead of "farthest", we could also understand it as going further. So developing, growing, enhancing these qualities.

So what are these qualities? It's a list of ten: generosity, ethical behavior, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, resolve, loving-kindness, and equanimity.

We've done the first five, so the next one should be patience, but I'm not going to talk about patience tonight. I'm going to talk about loving-kindness, which is the ninth parami.

There's a few reasons, and one of them is related to just what I was talking about. How sometimes we hear this idea of perfection—maybe we don't even notice it, it might be a subtle way in which our inner critic might roar and say, "Oh well, I'm far from perfect, so why should I even bother?" or something like this.

But loving-kindness is a way in which we can meet whatever is arising with some openness, some spaciousness, some ease, some warm-heartedness.

So mindfulness and loving-kindness aren't exactly the same, but they're related. And as I go through the talk, maybe I'll highlight some of the differences.

So loving-kindness, as many of you know, is the translation of the word mettā^[2]. So it's the mettā parami. But loving-kindness isn't the only translation we could use: goodwill, well-wishing, benevolence, friendliness, kindness, kindfulness. I've seen a handful of them, and maybe you have your own favorite translation of mettā.

One way we might understand it is as a heartfelt concern for the welfare and happiness of all living beings. As a parami, it's for all living beings, without discrimination, without reservation, and of course, includes ourselves.

So the parami is kind of like taken to the farthest. The complete version is to have this warm-hearted wish for the welfare of all living beings.

But sometimes, loving-kindness might feel like it's associated with love, which is a beautiful, beautiful quality. But sometimes we might hear "love" and it might feel sappy, or sentimental, or saccharine.

And mettā isn't sappy, or sentimental, or saccharine. In fact, some of you might know this, that the near enemy of mettā—that is, that which looks like, or is a facsimile of, or maybe can pass as mettā, but isn't quite mettā—is affection with attachment. So it's the warm-heartedness, but it's intermingled with this wish for things to be a certain way. It's not unconditional, like, "I love you as long as you behave properly. When you don't behave properly, then I have different feelings."

But it's perfectly natural that loving-kindness and attachment are mixed in this human life. They're different, whereas mettā is an offering and attachment is more of a holding. There are these different movements: an opening, and maybe a closing. And we might say that the difficulties that we have in our relationships arise from this root of attachment. That is, any possessiveness, or rejection, or fear that we might have in our relationships is associated with this attachment that is often intermingled with loving-kindness. It's perfectly natural to have this, and it's part of the human experience to have this intermingling.

So mettā as a parami is an encouragement for us to notice: where is this attachment? Where is there some holding? And can we also notice when there's just some pure wish for the welfare and happiness of others, this pure warm-heartedness, goodwill, well-wishing?

In the same way that mettā is universal, it doesn't make distinctions, whereas attachment is particular—attached to this person but not that person. Mettā is more of an even radiance or something like this. So in this way, mettā is an expression of freedom. It's not an expression of clinging, not an expression of attachment.

And since awakening and freedom is the guide, the measure, the goal of parami practice—again, we can use this word "goal" and hold it lightly, but it is the direction of our practice—mettā parami includes those forms of love or goodwill that are characterized by freedom.

So it has this quality of freedom associated with it as opposed to some clinging or some attachment. Clinging can also be expressed as greed or hatred. And loving-kindness, of course, is like an antidote to hatred, or if hatred is too strong a word, maybe ill will, or maybe we can even say aversion. We know that greed and hatred are some of the roots of the defilements, so loving-kindness, mettā, is an antidote. In the opposite direction, we don't simultaneously have this warm-hearted care for somebody at the same time that we have hostility and ill will towards them.

And so the Eightfold Path^[3] also has freedom as its guide, measure, and goal. And it's not surprising that the Eightfold Path and the paramis are directed towards awakening and freedom, to support that.

Part of the Eightfold Path is the second step, which is Right Intention, or wise intention. And part of wise intention is non-greed, non-ill will, and non-harming.

So non-greed sometimes can be understood as renunciation, which is another of the paramis. It could also be generosity, perhaps. But non-ill will is often understood as mettā, loving-kindness. So loving-kindness as an intention, as an underlying support for our mental activities, as a substratum, or maybe even just a stratum of the direction our life is going. When we're expressing the Eightfold Path, when we're practicing with the Eightfold Path, we're not filled with ill will. Instead, there's mettā, non-ill will.

And then the third aspect of Right Intention is non-harming, which is compassion. And of course, compassion and mettā, karuṇā^[4] and mettā, are related. That is, loving-kindness is this warm-hearted wish for the welfare of all beings that's radiating out. And it's just natural that when radiating out, it would come into contact with individuals that are suffering. And so that sincere wish for their suffering to end is compassion. So mettā plus suffering equals compassion.

So in this way, not only mettā but karuṇā, loving-kindness and compassion, are not only a part of the Eightfold Path, but they work together as part of the paramis as well. This wish for the suffering to end, our own suffering and the suffering of others.

But ill will also shows up in subtle ways. I'm talking about the Eightfold Path having the intention of non-ill will: not having hostility, not wanting to harm others, not being angry with others. Sometimes when we're angry we don't have access to our best wisdom. And sometimes that energy can feel like it's not directed in a way that's wholesome and helpful, so the Eightfold Path includes non-ill will, non-anger.

So this is maybe a more obvious way in which ill will might be expressed, but ill will can also be expressed in subtle ways. That is, when we encounter suffering, there's often this tendency to think, if we don't have loving-kindness already, there's this idea of, "This needs to be different."

Whether that shows up like just an uncomfortable sensation when we're meditating. I know for quite some time when I meditated, I had this sound in my ear, and it wouldn't go away, and I could just feel the anger that would be arising, like, "Dang it, don't you know that I'm trying to meditate now? I can't meditate with this." This sense of hostility and really wanting to push it away.

So when we come up with difficulties, it might start out subtle, like, "I wish that weren't there," or it might flare up into something obvious like anger. But when it's really subtle, it might be this sense of, "Oh, this has to be different." Or maybe there's a sense of irritation, or fault-finding, or having a grudge against something. So just ways the heart and the mind might lean in these directions. These are more subtle ways.

Or maybe instead of the sense of "this needs to be different," there's a sense of "I need to be different." If there's suffering, if there's something that's uncomfortable, then I need to be different. This is also a subtle way in which ill will shows up against ourselves. This sense of not being good enough, this sense of inadequacy, the inner critic just getting a toehold and then often it can go running.

So if we practice with loving-kindness and have this intention of loving-kindness, it is a way in which we might be able to embed it in the foundation, in the milieu in which we think in our inner life. It is a way in which some of even these subtle forms of ill will can be counteracted, and maybe not given the chance to flare up into something like anger, or some real inner critic, some self-loathing.

Another way in which ill will might show up, and which loving-kindness or mettā can be a support to counteract or to be an antidote, is when there's a strong sense of us versus them, me versus you, me against the world. Whenever there's a strong sense of separation, there's also this subtle sense of ill will there.

With mettā, there's not such a strong sense. Of course, we can make distinctions and use discernment, but there isn't such a strong separation of me versus you, us versus them.

And so practicing with loving-kindness, practicing with mettā as a parami, is a way in which we can soften some of these boundaries that we are making that are being supported by ill will. And instead, maybe it allows us to be with the irritating without collapsing, without shutting down, to be with the unfair, to be with the messy. So in this way, mettā is also going to be a support for equanimity, in which we don't lose our balance but instead can just be with what's happening, and not collapsing into making these distinct separations, or just collapsing into numbness.

So mettā acts as an antidote to ill will, both the obvious ways of ill will, but maybe even really the subtle ways like the aversion or the creating a strong sense of separation. And the suttas^[5] do talk about how a heart released with mettā is brighter than any acts we might do, or any meritorious acts in particular.

And in the time of the Buddha, meritorious acts—that is, things that were done in order to garner merit—were definitely concerned with separation between individuals, and maybe a little bit of attachment: "I'm going to do this and then I'm going to have this particular reward." So merit is a little bit more associated with everyday life. There's nothing wrong with gathering merit, absolutely nothing wrong with it, it's an integral part of the path.

But at the time of the Buddha, merit was also associated with ritual sacrifices—not in Buddhism, but in one of the dominant traditions, the dominant religions of the time. They would do rituals, ritual sacrifices of sometimes living beings, as a way to please the gods or to garner a particular outcome.

So in contrast to these things, mettā, and especially a heart released via mettā—some of you may know in Pali, the word for heart, citta^[6], can also be translated as mind. So the mind released by mettā and the heart released by mettā... well, so here's a sutta quote:

"Just as the radiance of all the stars does not equal a sixteenth part of the moon's radiance..."—just saying that the brightness of the moon is so much brighter than the brightness of the stars, but the moon's radiance surpasses them and shines forth bright and brilliant—"in the same way, of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart's release by mettā. The heart's release by mettā surpasses them and shines forth bright and brilliant." This idea of when we have this mettā, that it's a beautiful thing, has a luminosity, it has a radiance to it.

And part of the reason we might say that there's this radiance is, in the same sutta, another stanza, another verse says, "One who actively develops mettā mindfully and without limit sees their attachments wane, their bonds become worn thin."

So this developing of mettā, this cultivating of mettā mindfully and without limit, so it's boundless and it's for all beings everywhere, like we would with a parami. We see their attachments wane, so things that we're attached to, there's a softening of this, there's a letting go. And the bonds, the fetters that keep us tied to our difficulties and to suffering become thin. This is the direction we want to go, right? Towards greater freedom.

Developing Mettā

So this first line, "One who actively develops mettā," how do we develop mettā? There's a number of different ways. One is just in our daily life. When we meet people, especially as the pandemic is ending and many of us are moving about in social situations more than we were before, just noticing how we feel when we meet people. Is there this inner sense of friendliness that we're having? Do we have some warm-heartedness, or maybe not? Maybe we are feeling reserved or a little bit held back.

Maybe you could have this inquiry of noticing, okay, what does it feel like when there's more warm-heartedness and less open-heartedness? It's perfectly natural in our daily life, when we're not practicing loving-kindness, to have more or less.

So how does that feel? How can you tell the difference? What does loving-kindness feel like? What does pure mettā feel like? What does it feel like when it's tangled up or associated with attachment? What does it feel like when there's a little bit of aversion? Just in our daily life. So that's one way to practice developing mettā: just becoming familiar with how it feels in the mind and in the body, and can you notice ways in which it's more likely to arise? So that's one way.

Another is the Metta Sutta^[7]. Some of you might be familiar with this. I'm not going to go into detail now, but this is kind of like a beloved chant in our tradition. I believe it's the most common chant, certainly here at IMC, and maybe Spirit Rock and IMS. But it might also be the most common chant throughout Southeast Asia as well for Theravada Buddhists. The Metta Sutta is about this quality of loving-kindness, cultivating it, and showing up in the world with it. And it also talks about how it leads to freedom.

So in some ways, the Metta Sutta is a guidance of the mettā parami that leads to greater freedom. So one way to practice cultivating, developing mettā, is to practice with the Metta Sutta: chant it, listen to it, memorize it, maybe contemplate it, maybe investigate it a little bit. We don't have to make it complicated. You know, there's been plenty of analysis that's done on it—if you like, you could. But you could also just very simply listen. If you just put 'Metta Sutta chant' online, you'll find plenty of versions of it, and just see how it feels. So that's a second way in which we can cultivate and develop loving-kindness.

And a third way... maybe I'll actually just share this story. When I was in chaplaincy training, part of the training was we went to a funeral home. There was a group of us that were there, and we found ourselves in a chapel with a casket that had a corpse in it. And we were kind of surprised, we didn't know that was going to happen. It was just us there with this casket, and we kind of looked at one another, and we weren't quite sure what to do, but we wanted to honor and respect this corpse, this person that used to be alive that is now here. And so we chanted the Metta Sutta. It was just kind of an expression of our well-wishing, expression of our warmth, expression of... I don't know, a way for us to join our voices together and put something out there. So maybe it doesn't make perfect logical sense, but in some way, it felt like a beautiful thing to do.

So there might be a way in which learning or practicing with the Metta Sutta might show up in your life in a way that's unexpected. It might be a support or a resource. I'll say there were times early in my meditation practice when I would have difficulties, and I had memorized the Metta Sutta, and I would just chant it while I was meditating, and it just created a different atmosphere, a different attitude in the mind. So, chanting the Metta Sutta.

And then, of course, the third way is... [Coughs] My apologies, I'm not sure why my throat is misbehaving a little bit here. So, a third way to practice with loving-kindness is, of course, to do loving-kindness meditation, mettā meditation.

Chances are many of you are familiar with this. Maybe I'll just say briefly, there's two ways in which we can do this. One is the sense of just radiating mettā indiscriminately, just sending it out.

And there's a sutta that talks about this, and I'll just say briefly: "One dwells pervading one direction with a mind imbued with mettā. Likewise the second direction, likewise the third and the fourth. So above, below, and all around, one dwells pervading everywhere and in every way, the entire world with a mind imbued with mettā." So just the sense of radiating goodwill out. Having a sense of wishing benevolence, doing well-wishing out.

And then the second way, which is maybe more familiar, is a little bit more structured and specific. We would cultivate loving-kindness to a particular person, a benefactor, ourself, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person. And progressively, in a systematic way, sending loving-kindness, using phrases often, to different individuals or categories of individuals.

So two ways to practice: one where you just radiate loving-kindness in all directions, and one in which it's a little bit more specific to individuals. Whichever way, it's all good. It's all good. This is a way in which we can cultivate and develop mettā as a way to support greater freedom and greater ease. So we can have the perfection of mettā, which allows us to wish well-being for all beings everywhere. Thank you.