DECEMBER 9, 2012 NOTES & HOMEWORK.
Metta is both a general attitude, state of mind/heart of friendliness and kindness to everyone and everything experienced and this we practiced during the last month.
It is also a formal meditation practice, by focusing the attention on a repeating set of blessings/wishes/phrases over and over, to concentrate the mind, and by feeling the meaning of each blessing, developing a friendly attitude in the heart.
During the course of our afternoon, I further elaborated on practice suggestions – referred to below.
Firstly, our Meditation was a guided Metta session, utilizing the dear being as a Muse for Friendliness – a being who, when remembered, evokes a feeling of goodwill and kind caring friendliness.
3 steps to establish such a Muse:
- Think of a being with whom you have an easy friendly connection. Take the time to establish a good sense of them in your mind, by visualizing them, remembering times you share, sensing them etc.
- Focus on, remember, his/her qualities and endearing attributes. Take time to recall them.
- While maintaining both steps 1 & 2, notice how your heart is affected by doing this. Feel your friendly heart, and how you actually register friendliness, warmth, tenderness, delight etc.
From these three steps (which you can return to whenever they might re-charge the practice), start to and repeatedly wish this being three or four good blessings.
We began our study, by reading over and chanting together the Buddha’s words on Loving Kindness from the Metta Sutta, and the Metta Chant evolved from the Sutta. See attached document *.
From these we saw the basic four wishes / blessings / Metta phrases about:
- Freedom from hostility,
- Freedom from mental suffering, and
- Freedom from physical suffering, and
- the ability to be at ease in day to day life.
I then offered a variety of different phrases, both more and less traditional.
Using three, four or five slightly different blessings keeps us interested, without becoming bored (too few) or confused (too many).
As we are all wired differently, with very different personalities and life experiences, let alone a variety of current circumstances occurring in our lives, our Metta/Friendliness practice becomes unique, using the same principles as each other, while using different specific words. Metta practice is a creative and authentic art, not a mechanical rote repetition.
I recommend you make use of:
Words/language which come naturally;
More words or fewer;
Visual imagery, rhythm or rhyme,
Memory,
Sounds (singing), settings, emotional memory, energetic feelings, kinesthetics etc.
METTA IS:
- A CONTINIUUM of emotional feelings, not all ‘loving’, from very warm love on the one hand, through friendly caring, accepting and respecting, to tolerating and not adding any negative spin on to extremely unpleasant or difficult experience. It’s not about how much we love the situation, but about not relating to it with any covering of Hindrance (aversion, attachment).
- SOOTHING, when under duress or stress, by softening and being careful and kind to either the situation, oneself or another.
- A REFUGE in which to ABIDE – an ABIDING place/state. Much more than a momentary shift of attitude. A resting place for the heart/mind. Beautiful.
- EXPANDING force. Buddha “My heart grown wide with Loving Kindness”. As we are able accept, allow, care for a situation/person/ourselves, we feel bigger. A more open mind and a bigger heart. ‘Large-hearted’.
The traditional way of practicing expands from ones own self, and dearest ones as Muses (categories trad.) through lesser known people, to difficult ones and beyond, radiating in all directions. We’ll practice this later in the year. Metta practice also grows to include 3 other divine states: Compassion, Empathetic Joy and Equanimity, all of which we will study and practice in the coming months.
- A PURIFICATION. By attuning to the state of your heart, you will come to recognize when it is open and friendly and when closed, shrinking, tight, angry, unkind. You will also come to understand, by seeing, what helps it to open, and what stimulates it to shrink and close off. This recognition and understanding is what enables us to choose, and thus moderate and direct our attitudes and behaviours. It is only when we realize we have a choice that we can make it wisely for the better of everyone involved. Unseen we are condemned to our unconscious repeating programs.
- STRENGTHENING. When we are calmer, kinder and more understanding we are powerful beings. Strength in clarity, empathy and goodness. There is inherent weakness in anger and hurt, negativity and need.
- Like ANTIFREEZE – offered by a participant.
- A CONCENTRATION practice, focusing our attention on such benign and pleasurable states of heart; This practice, when pursued intensively over time can lead to very deep states of concentration: Jhana. Over the course of this words fall away, leaving only the meaning of each essence word/blessing, as the mind becomes increasingly still and quiet.
HOMEWORK - 5 weeks:
Dec. 9
Work out your own blessings / words / wishes, using the various aides suggested above. If you have your own established practice, you might want to refresh/renew it with some modification or changes.
Meditation Practice: Practice regularly, and observe your capacity to STAY with the practice for minutes at a time, developing your concentration – only this way can it become a Divine ABIDING for you.
Work with an EASY Muse.
Daily Life: Simply apply yourself to attune to the climate of your heart. More regularly observe the opening and closing of your heart, getting familiar with this beautiful delicate organ that guides our behaviour so powerfully.
Dec. 16
Meditation Practice: Continue as above, but after some minutes with your easy Muse, turn your attention to YOURSELF. To help with the 3 steps: picture yourself as a young child, or as you see yourself in a photo, or simply sensing your being. Wish yourself well, and allow the meaning of each blessing to wash over you, and rest in it.
Daily Life: Respect yourself, your boundaries, your energy and your needs. Take care of yourself consciously. Talk to yourself kindly (quietly !!), becoming your own best friend.
Dec. 23
During this Christmas holiday week, continue with your Metta Meditation practice as above, but with 3 different Muses – adding now a dear friend of yours, including the 3 steps.
Daily Life: observe your kindly intentions to your family, tuning in to the state of your heart in your conversations and encounters. Especially observe the sense of EXPANSIVENESS when resting in an open friendly heart, compared with the narrow and tightness of self-concern.
Dec. 30
Meditation Practice: Continue as above, finding your own way to make this lovely practice most alive for yourself.
Daily Life: Tune in to the SOOTHING, calming and reassuring effects of remembering a Metta / friendly heart and observe this aspect of your experience.
Jan. 6
Meditation Practice: Continue with any of the previous 4 Muses and include some Vipassana practice too.
Daily Life: Observe the developing STRENGTH and CONFIDENCE arising in you as a result of being able to change your attitude into a friendly one, whenever you can.
RESOURCES:
For those who like good old books, I recommend: The Power of Kindness, by Peiro Ferrucci
Print out your own copies of the Buddha’s words on Loving Kindness = The Metta Sutra (accesstoinsight from last month’s homework), and print out the attached Metta Chant, peruse.
Online, search and see what you find to share at our next meeting, which will be on
- January 13th 2013.
Wishing you a lovely holiday season, much joy with your friends and families, much gratitude as our earth turns back towards the light of summer in 11 days, and a very happy New Year.
Heather.