Metta For Self And Metta In The World

In this talk,

I'd like to discuss how metta shows up in the larger world.

As a reminder,

Metta is a word in Pali,

Which is the language of the Buddha.

It's also known as mayatri,

Which is the Sanskrit version of the word.

The word metta is most often translated as loving kindness.

I'll share with you a definition of metta from the author and mindfulness teacher,

Ruth King.

She says,

Metta is about kindness without exception and indiscriminate friendliness,

Like the high noon sun that shines and touches all things.

That's the capacity that metta represents.

When we are in the practice of metta,

We can radiate from the inside in all directions a friendliness that supports the well-being of humanity.

Like sunlight,

As Ruth King alludes,

Kindness is a fundamental need as important as food,

Water,

Shelter,

And clothes.

If we were not shown kindness by our own caretakers,

We wouldn't survive.

The soothing words or touch of a caretaker are essential to help babies find comfort and adapt in the world.

This need doesn't leave us and can still be just as strong no matter what stage of life you're in.

And I'll give you an example of a recent issue that I experienced involving health insurance.

I've had health insurance through my school for one semester,

But I found out the hard way that I became ineligible in the second semester due to a specific rule that determined my qualification for insurance.

The long story short,

I needed to find coverage fast.

Luckily,

I found it,

But not without doing some real legwork.

And I was really lucky that nothing happened to me during the period in which I was uninsured.

But through this whole process,

I had noticed feelings coming up.

First,

I felt angry,

And then I sat with it.

Sitting quietly right here,

In fact,

I could sense a need that wasn't being fulfilled.

I felt abandoned.

I felt left out of the group.

I was able to dig deeper and see that at the heart of things,

I had a basic need that wasn't being fulfilled.

Mindfulness of emotions is at play here,

And we give name to those inner signals that we feel with words like fear,

Abandonment,

And anger,

Or whatever is coming to mind.

It's a vital skill of tuning into your own power of awareness.

This power comes from our repeated practice.

Mindfulness of breathing and mindfulness of body practices are also foundational.

And with our practice,

It leads right here to this moment of knowing,

This moment of inner truth.

So using all those skills,

I could feel the sense of injustice inside me,

That this system isn't really built to care about people.

And perhaps you felt this way,

What sensations and thought patterns were present in your own system.

The people I spoke with didn't care that the system was set up with a faulty process,

And I was left behind.

I could feel the wounding of being left out.

I felt that I was not being seen as a person,

But simply a cog in a system.

It was just that annoying part of someone's job.

And this is the opposite of loving kindness.

In metta,

All beings deserve care.

Systems may never be perfect,

But the people who make it up should always have the choice to act with metta.

We end up with flawed systems when people don't practice metta.

Institutionalized racism and other kinds of discrimination become normalized,

And people operate as if in a trance,

To use Tara Brach's terminology.

They may act with no regard to the impacts of their actions,

Even mundane actions.

But systems and organizations are all made of people,

And thus any work on a system also involves work within ourselves.

We all have the capacity to try using metta in our lives,

Because we are working towards indiscriminate friendliness,

As Ruth says.

It can be daunting.

How on earth can I give this friendliness to someone who's been a jerk to me or someone that I'm indifferent to?

How do I give it to something more abstract like the earth or the ocean?

How do I give it to someone who has perpetuated great harm to me?

I'm not even talking about insurance at this point,

But someone who may have been violent or abusive.

Obviously,

That's not easy,

But we can start with little steps.

We start by turning into the feeling of loving beings that we already have a familiar relationship with.

If I want to turn on my meta-generator,

So to speak,

I think of people like my mom or my best friend,

Or even puppy dogs.

Today,

We'll talk about expanding that kindness to others.

Why would I want to do that?

Well,

Because as I shared in my story,

This trance has become embedded in our everyday way of doing things.

It's embedded in our systems,

And this simply creates a world where people are not able to flourish.

It also doesn't feel good,

And it has deep impacts on our well-being.

I sometimes use the word un-meta.

Being un-meta means being unkind,

And it shows up in systems that treat people as capital,

Systems that place certain people at the center and others at the periphery.

In such a system,

We are to use Ruth King's analogy like newborns without a caretaker or plants without the essential nourishment of the sun.

In the example that I gave at the beginning,

Where a baby needs meta from its caretakers,

It was limited to that small circle of loved ones.

But talking about meta on a larger scale,

We can use the example of the sun.

Here,

Meta can be like a cosmic radiance that touches all.

It might seem daunting to think that so much is on me to provide meta to this world,

But in reality,

It's on us.

The reality is we can practice meta in small ways in many different relationships.

Part of my own journey through mindfulness has been opening up relationships of love in existing friendships.

I looked in the places where I already spent my time.

What small changes could turn things around?

I looked in my circle of friends,

Opening up to those who seem to be seeking greater intimacy,

Like myself.

And sometimes meta means looking at how we are in our everyday relationship to those around us.

It means giving space to people if you tend to take up a lot of space or if you tend to be quiet.

It means speaking just a little bit more in vulnerability.

That's being kind to yourself.

Meta can also mean looking at your own patterns and bringing attention to what serves you and what doesn't.

Recently,

In the last few months,

I opened up a loving relationship with someone who I never thought would have existed out there.

And this was because I finally practiced meta for myself.

I did this by studying relationships and learning how I limited myself through my choices.

There was this cognitive aspect to it for sure.

I had to look at my thought processes.

But it was a long period of continued meta practice that healed prior wounds and allowed me to move on.

It starts with ourselves,

But then it radiates out,

Making friends out of strangers.

But what about something even greater?

I found myself loving the earth,

Just loving where I am,

The trees and the flowers in my neighborhood,

And the birds that I noticed when airplane travel quieted down.

There's an awe that comes from observing nature,

And it can inspire meta.

For example,

I was recently informed that crows are considered really intelligent.

And that's because they use tools.

Soon after I learned this,

I saw a pair of crows prying open a recycling container in my neighborhood.

It's little observations like this that can really open things up.

Now,

With advances in artificial intelligence,

We're facing this question of what exactly is intelligence?

And that brings up questions about meta.

But what can we learn about the beings right in front of us?

And what does being kind to those beings teach us?

We don't know the half of it.

But when we look at the animals around us,

We notice that we're part of the system.

And what can I do to help me and the existing animals flourish in a real way?

All of this is to say that the journey can lead to change,

And the work may be hard.

It is work.

It may be incredibly hard if you're working with trauma or deeply entranced in a system that actively discourages meta.

Remember to work with even more kindness towards yourself in these cases.

Give it time.

Find help.

We're working against very strong forces here,

But the work is worth it.