Transcription
Okay, so if we just review briefly something I mentioned last night, two of the qualities that mettā has (that kind of differentiate it from what we often, usually, call 'love') are this sense of unconditionality and boundlessness, as I said last night. So with this quality of boundlessness, it's extending the range of our care, of our wishing well. And one of the ways we can do that is by starting in quite a narrow range where it's easy, with those that we care about, and moving outwards from that, eventually to people we don't know, to people we have difficulty with, to all beings. So we have these categories of beings. It's just a crutch, a support. There's nothing much more to it than that. But over the days, we'll move through these categories, extending it and extending it and adding categories as the days go.
Today, first day, we're actually going to start with two. We're going to start right away with two. And they are (1) ourselves and (2) what's called the benefactor. And I'll explain what that means. And so the encouragement today is to stay with these two categories, but to be quite flexible, to feel free to move between those two.
(1) So as we talked about last night, the mettā for oneself, the care for oneself is fundamental. It's hugely important. And oftentimes it's something we're so in need of, desperately in need of. It's a basis, really, for all the other mettā, in a way. Caring for ourselves is a basis, a healthy, strong basis for loving others, for caring for others. When I have enough self-love, my love for others becomes less attached. I don't need so much from them. I don't need it to be a certain way. I have enough. It liberates my love into more unconditionality.
So this loving ourselves, giving mettā to ourselves, and directing the mettā practice towards our self, for some people it's very easy, and they just plug it in and get on with it. But for many people it's actually quite challenging. So that's why we're introducing two right on the first day, two categories. And really to take advantage of the openness there and the flexibility and fluidity that's available.
(2) What's a benefactor, the other category? Traditionally, a benefactor is a person to whom you feel great amounts of gratitude. This person has been some almost heroic figure, perhaps, in your life. Could be a great teacher that you've had or something. And that's fine, and maybe you have a person like that in your life, someone that really, the relationship is very, very simple, and there's a huge amount of gratitude, and care, love, respect for this person. Sometimes we look at our lives. We actually don't have -- there's no one who's been like that for us. To me, the benefactor, following the principle of what we're trying to do here, the benefactor is really the easiest person to give mettā to. That's it -- just the easiest person. So whoever is the easiest person that, when you think of them, when you call them into your mind and heart, it's quite easy to wish them well -- there's not a lot of complexity.
For instance, my benefactor for a long time was my brother. We're actually not that close. I hardly even speak to him nowadays. [laughter] But when we were young -- well, we fought a lot and stuff, but ... [laughter] Actually, why is he ...? No. [laughter] The fact is, we were pretty close despite all that, when we were very young. And despite that, when I thought of him, it was very easy, very easy. It just came naturally despite the kind of -- on the surface it wouldn't be an obvious-seeming person to think about. So yes, great gratitude, yes teacher, yes whatever, all that. But really, just whoever is easiest, okay? Simplest and easiest.
General point: in the mettā practice, something I think is really key for all meditation, but perhaps especially for mettā, there's really space here for creativity, okay? For playfulness, for experimentation. So really wanting to find, as I alluded to last night, the ways that make it work for you. It's going to be individual, within certain parameters. Really giving yourself permission to play, to experiment, to have fun with it and see what works. So there's a whole range, and I briefly alluded to this last night, of possible sort of approaches and techniques. I suppose the three that up here we're going to be bringing out more are (1) the use of phrases (and I'll go into that in a second), (2) the use of visualizations and sort of visualizing light and things, (3) and the use of the body, the kinaesthetic sense of the body. But I said there are others, and devotional ways, and deities, and others, too, which I haven't mentioned. And I'm very, very happy to hear -- we are very happy to hear from you about that and encourage that and find ways to make those other ways work. But these are the ones, these three are the ones that we're going to be perhaps emphasizing a lot in the instructions.
So what I want to do, perhaps, is talk a little bit, just a little bit now, primarily about the phrases approach, and then maybe do a guided meditation, and then after that just a little bit more kind of summing up, and a bit more about the others.
(1) Okay, so the phrases -- and some of you know this already -- one way of approaching mettā, and we will be emphasizing it quite a lot, is to have a set of perhaps three or four phrases that embody the directionality, the feeling, the motivation of mettā, embody this well-wishing, this friendliness. And just to be repeating these phrases gently, quietly, lovingly to oneself over and over. And one is, as I said last night, dropping drops in the bucket in that way. So the ones we're going to offer, and you do not have to use these phrases, but these are the ones we've come up with:
May I (or you) be safe and protected.
May I (or you) be filled with happiness.
May I (may you) be peaceful.
May I (may you) live with ease and with kindness.
So that's just a suggestion. I've tacked them to the board, if you like them and you want to remember them. But there are many, many possibilities -- basically, anything that, as I said, embodies this well-wishing. I think traditionally the phrases are something like:
May you have physical happiness.
May you have mental happiness.
Something as simple as that. But basically, what do we want as human beings? We want health, we want ease in the body, we want ease of heart, ease of mind, peace, well-being. Something that embodies that in words that resonate for you.
So this second one -- "May you be filled with happiness. May I be filled with happiness" -- some people love that, and some people hate it. The word 'happiness' just completely pushes the wrong buttons, for all kinds of different reasons. It's too ... [laughter] You know, too jolly for English people. [laughter] Or it feels like, "I just -- I don't know what that word means for me." It maybe pushes a sense of lack or something. I was teaching recently, and someone said, "Well, I like the word 'joy.' But 'happy' -- I can't do that." Fine. Maybe leave it out completely. Find what works for you. 'Well-being.' It really, really, really doesn't matter. Really doesn't matter. But to respect and to tune into -- a lot of this is about sensitivity, listening in, tuning in, to respect, tune in: what works for me? What feels meaningful and connected for me?
[9:28] The phrases that we choose for ourselves need to be general as well, in the sense that I need to feel confident that I can meet someone, anyone, any human being, anywhere, any time, even twenty years from now, and those phrases will apply to them. So you might be thinking of someone, and ... I don't know, maybe their dog's ill or something, and so, "I hope your dog gets better." That's not general enough. Or you know, "I hope you get a job soon." We want something much more general. We also have to be careful with the phrases that ... The tendency to make them embody actually a corrective agenda -- you just have to watch out for that. "May I lose weight." [laughter] "May my hair start to regrow where it's getting a bit too thin." [laughter] No. But even a little more subtly, "May I be kind." Okay, maybe great. Maybe that's actually coming from some self-judgment: "I don't measure up where I am. I need to be kinder." Where's it coming from? So to pay attention to all this. It's really not a corrective agenda. It's a well-wishing. It's very different.
So it's important to take some time, especially if you're new to this -- some of you have already done mettā, and you have phrases, and you just plug them in and go. Some of you, obviously, are new. It's important to take time with the phrases and feel out what's, as I said, meaningful and connected for you. But sometimes people get too hung up on finding exactly the right thing. Eventually, the phrases are actually not that important. It moves more into a kind of energetic quality that's going on. So don't get too tied up in that.
Sometimes a person wants to keep the phrases very flexible and just say whatever phrases come into their mind and heart in that moment for that person or for themselves. And so there's a constant kind of creativity with the phrases. And that's totally fair and fine and okay. And actually you can do that if you want. So you're really responding. It's like, "What do I need to say to myself? What do I need to say to this person right now? What feels right?" That's fine. I would probably, probably, lean on the side of keeping the phrases more constant for a while, because as time goes by (and I'm talking about months, even, and years with this practice), something quite profound starts happening. It's almost like the phrases begin to seep into the cells and into the being, and they're really there, and they become almost like a key. So you start saying your phrases, and it's like turning the key, opening the door of mettā, because we've absorbed them in the body and in the mind very deeply. Within having the same phrases, the meaning can be flexible.
So let's break this down a little bit. So for instance, the first one: "May you be safe and protected." For my brother, he used to have a job in London and used to commute on a moped into the centre of London. So, "May you be safe and protected," when I was thinking of him, automatically and effortlessly, I thought about, "Well, on that journey, may you be safe" -- you know, this little moped in the London traffic. Eventually, actually, he had an accident. But it was very -- it meant something quite specific within the same meaning. Or we might be giving, "May I be safe and protected," and aware of all my inner critic thoughts and patterns. And then those same words have the flexibility of meaning, "May I be protected from this seemingly incessant pattern of self-criticism." Or we know that another person suffers with that. Or sometimes, you know, we have insights, and "safe and protected" means, "May I remember those insights. These shoots that are emerging in my consciousness and seem so helpful and so opening -- may I remember them. May I live them." That's also "safe and protected."
Okay, last thing. We'll talk about this more, much more. There are feelings associated with loving-kindness and mettā, feelings. There is an emotion to it, or emotions that go with mettā, definitely. However, all emotions are impermanent. They come and they go. It's impossible for the feeling or a feeling of loving-kindness to be there all the time. Even as I sit here, and I'm plugging away with the phrases, actually impossible for the emotion to be there all the time. Sometimes it feels like it's barely showing itself at all. Sometimes it's around quite a lot. And then it goes, in and out, whatever.
So yes, there's a place for the emotion and feeling into that and opening to it and feeling it in the body, and we'll talk more about this. But emotions are impermanent. The feeling of mettā is definitely impermanent. So don't get hung up on that. Also, as well as the emotion, we're planting the seeds of intention. And sometimes it will feel just dry, the whole thing: I'm just churning out these phrases. We'll talk much more about the balance and responsiveness as the days go by. But sometimes I don't want to be worrying if I'm not particularly feeling much. I just have faith in this planting. I'm planting seeds like a farmer plants seeds, and I have faith. And in time, whatever time, they show themselves. They sprout. They come up. That might be right now. It might be five seconds from now. It might be five minutes. It might be five years from now. In a way, that's not our business. The job of the farmer is just to plant the seeds, just to plant the seeds and to have faith in that.
Okay, enough talking. Let's do a practice together, and I'll guide us through a little bit.
[16:50, guided meditation begins]
Okay, so finding your way into a posture of ease, a posture of comfort. It's quite important in the mettā practice for the body to actually be quite comfortable. So if there's pain, please feel free to move. There are also extra chairs, etc. If there's pain while you're sitting, just to move, for now, gently, quietly. And later on we can incorporate pain. There's a way of incorporating that into the mettā practice. But also nourishing stillness, so not moving from a sense of too much restlessness, feeding restlessness.
Establishing that body sense, that body posture. And again, letting the awareness really fill out the space of the body. So we have this space of sensation that we sense as the body, that we feel as the body. Letting the awareness really inhabit that space, fill it out, push out the space with the awareness, with mindfulness. Like a balloon inflating, that space is filled with awareness. And in the words of the Buddha, "sensitive to the whole body."[1] So throughout the practice, keeping this whole body, light, delicate, open sensitivity. Sensitive to the whole body. And if you like, within that open body field, that balloon of awareness, if it feels helpful, you can gently centre, within that, the awareness at the heart centre in the middle of the chest, in the centre of the chest. Very light, very delicate. Centring there. Tuning in, sensitive to however the heart feels right now, however the body feels right now. Just open and connected.
Feeling yourself, feeling your being, your body, your life, your life force. Sensing, acknowledging your natural, beautiful, healthy wish to be well, to be at peace, to have well-being. Recognizing that. Wanting to honour that. The Buddha said, "You could search the entire universe for someone more deserving of loving-kindness than yourself, but you will not find that being; you will not find that person."[2] No one more deserving than ourselves. There's nothing we have to do, to be, to deserve mettā, to deserve this friendliness towards ourselves. Nothing at all.
So when you feel ready, staying sensitive to the whole body throughout, just light, delicate sensitivity, openness there. Beginning to offer to yourself the phrases, the intentions of well-wishing, of kindness: "May I be safe and protected. May I be filled with happiness. May I be peaceful. May I live with ease and with kindness."
Just gently repeating these phases, giving this intention to yourself over and over. Offering. Listening inside to the phrases. Sensitive to the body at the same time.
[28:07] Not forcing, not pressuring -- just gently, patiently offering. Listening to the phrases, connecting with them as you repeat them. Connecting to each phrase: "May I be safe and protected. May I be filled with happiness. May I be peaceful. May I live with ease and with kindness." Wrapping yourself, wrapping the body in the tenderness of well-wishing. Phrases like gentle waves lapping the shore, lapping the body, the being. Touching the body, the being, with kindness, with tenderness.
And when you feel ready, staying sensitive to the whole body, this light, delicate, open sensitivity to the field of the body, the space of the body, staying sensitive to that. And when you feel ready, calling into the heart, calling into the mind, the image or the sense of the benefactor, meaning just someone who it feels easy to wish well, the easiest person. Just getting a sense of them, of their being. Remembering their goodness, perhaps their kindness. Letting the heart acknowledge their kindness, their goodness, and feel what it feels. And beginning to offer them the same warmth, the same kindness and well-wishing, the same tenderness of care: "May you be safe and protected. May you be filled with happiness. May you be peaceful. May you live with ease and with kindness."
Some people who are visually oriented -- you might experiment with imagining the benefactor surrounded, held in a ball, a sphere of golden-white light. It's the light of mettā, of kindness, of love, suffusing and pervading their whole body and being. Healing, gladdening, easing, brightening. Find out what works for you.
So wrapping their being in the warmth, the care, the tenderness of this kindness, this well-wishing. Perhaps even imagining that this warmth, this softness radiates from your body, emanates from your body to embrace them in softness, to hold them, to surround and suffuse them.
As much as possible, trying to keep the anchor of the light, open sensitivity to your own body, the whole body. So being very patient, not too quick to judge the practice. Remember, whether there's a feeling or not is actually very secondary. We just plant the seeds of intention, over and over, and put our faith in that.
[46:50, guided meditation ends]
Do you get the basic idea? So we're refining this and expanding it over the days. A little refinement right now. So, there are the phrases. For some people there's the visual sense. Other people have almost no visual sense at all. It really doesn't matter. But sometimes there are the phrases and the visual sense, and there's also the kinaesthetic sense, meaning the sense of the body. I keep saying, "sensitive to the whole body." So you may have one of those three that is your primary anchor, your primary approach or avenue. You may have two of those three. Or you may have all three kind of together and balanced. All of that is fine. What works for you?
Sometimes we assume, "Oh, I should be -- because actually I'm a massage therapist, so I should be a 'body' type and kinaesthetic, maybe," or "I'm an artist. I should be visual." It doesn't tend to work that way. Find out now in the moment what works for you, what kind of mettā practitioner you are. If you're visual, it doesn't have to be digital photo quality. [laughter] It's okay, you know. You can play with the visualization, but not too elaborate. So, sometimes people like dressing the benefactor up in different clothes. [laughter] Bit like, sort of, Barbie doll -- it's probably a little too elaborate.
But things to do, for instance, with light are very helpful. So you can imagine a sphere of light, and in that light, they are held, and that light pervades. It pervades, and it suffuses their whole being, their whole body. White-golden light is very good, very helpful. You might imagine, for instance, a jewel, like a kind of core radiance inside them that's actually radiating the mettā, that it's coming from inside them. Or perhaps it's coming from inside you and radiating out a bit like -- do they have that on Star Trek? I'm not sure. [laughter] You know, a kind of beam thingy. It could be surrounding them. It could be showering them or a rain of mettā, you know. Lots of possibilities here, so you can be creative and playful. And the sensitivity to the body allows the sense, the felt sense, "Oh, this is working. This is helping a little bit."
Some people are very kinaesthetic right from the beginning. And so you can, again, imagine a kind of energy, or sometimes even feel an energy radiating out -- a warmth, a softness, a care radiating out, expressed almost in the energy field of the body, if that makes sense. And it's moving out from you, from this whole body, moving out to embrace and permeate the benefactor. Or if one's doing it for oneself, the light can be for oneself, of course, and the physical, kinaesthetic feeling for oneself.
Does all that make sense? Yeah? [laughter] Eventually, actually, the body is the most important one, funnily enough. The body ends up being really, well, the embodiment of the mettā. So follow what works for you. Eventually, in your own time, that will be the most important one. But it's really important to go with what feels most helpful.
Okay. That's probably plenty to be getting on with. So today, feeling into the practice, and as I said before, really being free to move between yourself and the benefactor -- whatever feels easiest. And just do both today, but don't feel like you're bashing your head against a brick wall too much. If the self feels difficult, really use the benefactor, and then come back.
Okay, so we have a period for walking meditation now. Now, with walking, again, you can be quite creative. So generally, we walk between two points, or you could just stand for a long time as well. You can imagine -- well, if you're walking, you can do the same thing. You can be walking in a bubble of light. You can be walking, saying the phrases. You can be walking in this kinaesthetic energy field of the body. If you're doing it for the benefactor, for instance, you're standing at one end, and the benefactor might be, in your imagination, at the other end. And you're walking towards them wishing them well. And then when you get there, miraculously they appear over there. [laughter] And you have to walk back. Or -- very lovely -- you can walk beside them. Very beautiful, and walking together in the imagination, in this cocoon of kindness, of warmth and care. Walking is really just picking a path and walking slowly, gently, back and forth, stopping when you want for as long as you want, etc. Find your way of working with this.
You may have seen the sign that Owen put up. There's a yurt, if you haven't noticed, a big Mongolian tent structure on the front lawn. And you're welcome to use that for any kind of yoga or tai chi or qigong or weightlifting ... [laughter] Whatever you want. Some body stuff is actually really good with this kind of practice. So if you don't do anything like that, make sure you get a nice walk in in the day, or something to really feel the body opening too. So that's there for that.
