Mettā

Mettā, मेत्ता in Devanagari or maitrī (Sanskrit: मैत्री) is loving-kindness, friendliness,benevolence,amity, friendship, good will, kindness, love, sympathy, close mental union (on same mental wavelength), and active interest in others. It is one of the ten pāramīs of the Theravāda school of Buddhism, and the first of the four sublime states (Brahmavihāras). This is love without clinging (upādāna).

The cultivation of loving-kindness (mettā bhāvanā) is a popular form of meditation in Buddhism. In the Theravadin Buddhist tradition, this practice begins with the meditator cultivating loving-kindness towards themself, then their loved ones, friends, teachers, strangers, enemies, and finally towards all sentient beings. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, this practice is associated with tonglen (cf.), whereby one breathes out ("sends") happiness and breathes in ("receives") suffering. Tibetan Buddhists also practice contemplation of the four immeasurables, which they sometimes call 'compassion meditation'

"Compassion meditation" is a contemporary scientific field that demonstrates the efficacy of metta and related meditative practices.

Basic methods

Metta meditation is regularly recommended to the Buddha's followers in the 2,500-year-old Pali canon. The canon generally advises radiating metta in each of the six directions, to whatever beings there may be.A different set of practical instructions, still widely used today, is found in the 5th CE Visuddhimagga. In addition, variations on this traditional practice have been popularized by contemporary teachers and applied in modern research settings.

Visuddhimagga instructions

Contemporary instruction for the cultivation of loving-kindness — such as is found in the works of Sharon Salzberg, the Triratna Buddhist Community's Kamalashila, and Matthieu Ricard — is often based in part on a method found in Buddhaghosa's 5th c. CE Pāli exegetical text, the Path to Purification (Pali:Visuddhimagga), Chapter IX. This traditional approach is best known for identifying successive stages of meditation during which one progressively cultivates loving-kindness towards:

Buddha sends love to all beings.

oneself

a good friend

a "neutral" person

a difficult person

all four of the above equally

and then gradually the entire universe

One should avoid choosing someone to whom one is sexually attracted or who is dead. For a "neutral" person, choose someone that you might come into contact with every day, but who does not give rise to strong positive nor strong negative emotions. For a "difficult" person, traditionally choose an enemy, but avoid choosing a person who has just wrecked your life, unless you are very well grounded in awareness.

Matthieu Ricard has recommended we choose to meditate on somebody for whom it is very easy for us to feel unconditional love and compassion.

Contemporary trainings

Mettā signifies friendship and non-violence, "a strong wish for the happiness of others" and also less obvious or direct qualities such as showing patience, receptivity, and appreciation. Loving-kindness is a very specific feeling — a caring for the well-being of another living being, independent of approving or disapproving of them, or expecting anything in return. Practice includes reciting specific words and phrases in order to evoke a "boundless warm-hearted feeling," or visualizing suffering and wishing well for those beings. Non-referential compassion, also known as "pure compassion", involves simply experiencing the feeling of caring for another sentient being. One special technique recommended by Matthieu Ricard is to, "imagine," the state of another. Richard J. Davidson has shown metta to induce changes in the tempoparietal lobe. Loving-kindness is the application of love to suffering. Metta is applied to all beings and, as a consequence, one experiences another of the sublime states: joy (mudita), which is true happiness in another person's happiness.

Benefits

The benefits of metta practice are both extolled by ancient texts and increasingly identified by contemporary research.

Traditional accounts

The most ancient extant Buddhist collection of texts, the Pali Canon, identifies a number of benefits from the practicing of metta meditation, including:

One sleeps easily, wakes easily, dreams no evil dreams. One is dear to human beings, dear to non-human beings. The devas protect one. Neither fire, poison, nor weapons can touch one. One's mind gains concentration quickly. One's complexion is bright. One dies unconfused and — if penetrating no higher — is headed for the Brahma worlds.

The Canon also upholds fully ripened metta development as a foremost antidote to ill will:

“No other thing do I know, O monks, on account of which unarisen ill will does not arise and arisen ill will is abandoned so much as on account of this: the liberation of the heart by loving-kindness. For one who attends properly to the liberation of the heart by loving-kindness, unarisen ill will does not arise and arisen ill will is abandoned.

Buddhists believe that those who cultivate loving-kindness will be at ease because they will see no need to harbour ill will or hostility. Buddhist teachers may even recommend meditation on loving-kindness as an antidote to insomnia and nightmares. It is generally felt that those around a person full of loving-kindness will feel more comfortable and happy too. Cultivating loving-kindness is thought to contribute to a world of love, peace and happiness.

Meditation on loving-kindness is considered a good way to calm down a distraught mind and an antidote to anger. Someone who has cultivated loving-kindness will not be easily angered and can quickly subdue anger that arises, being more caring, more loving, and more likely to love unconditionally.

Compassion meditation" research

A few recent psychological studies suggest that loving-kindness meditation may impact health and well-being. One study done at Stanford University suggests that a short 7 minute practice of loving-kindness meditation can increase social connectedness. Loving-kindness meditation has also been shown to reduce pain and anger in people with chronic lower back pain. Researcher Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that loving-kindness meditation can help boost positive emotions and well-being in life, fostering the personal resources that come from experiencing positive emotion.More research is needed to see whether loving-kindness meditation is appropriate for all populations, whether it works similarly for everyone, and to understand how much practice is needed for the benefits of the practice to manifest.

An EEG study by Richard J. Davidson of people who meditate in metta, with a minimum of 10,000 hours practice, showed substantial differences in the magnitude of gamma waves as well as gamma synchronization, particularly during meditative sessions, and directly afterwards. During baseline states, where the subject was not doing metta, there was a signature brain wave pattern that distinguishes the metta practitioners, lay people as well as monks, from people, at baseline, who have not extensively practiced compassion meditation. This study also showed, during meditation, an increase in the activity of brain areas such as the temporoparietal junction, insula, and amygdala and increase the subject's ability to see things from another's perspective, and actually change the area of the brain that is involved the autonomic system so that the meditator's heartbeat increases. These studies show that the amygdala is modulated during compassion mediation. 

Historical presentations

In the Pāli Canon, statements regarding the use of loving-kindness (metta) traditionally employ one or more of the following devices, often using a stock formula:

mental purification

a verse for wishing others well

pervading all directions and all beings with loving-kindness.

The well-known Kakacupama Sutta and Karaniya Metta Sutta use striking metaphors to give these traditional devices vitality. Other canonical materials, such as in the Paṭisambhidāmagga, elaborate on these basic devices in a manner that is perpetuated by the later traditional commentaries. Other canonical sources, such as the Abhidhamma, underline the key role of loving-kindness in the development of wholesome karma.

In the canon, this basic formula is expanded upon in a variety of ways. For instance, a couple of discourses provide the following description of "the path to the company of Brahmā" (brahmānaṃ sahavyatāya maggo) along with a memorable metaphor:

"What ... is the path to the company of Brahmā? Here a bhikkhu abides pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to himself, he abides pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill will. When the deliverance of mind by loving-kindness is developed in this way, no limiting action remains there, none persists there.

"Just as a vigorous trumpeter could make himself heard without difficulty in the four quarters, so too, when the deliverance of mind by loving-kindness is developed in this way, no limiting action remains there, none persists there. This is the path to the company of Brahmā.