Reflections on Metta: Noticing the Love That’s Already There

Metta (loving kindness or loving friendliness) is a big part of my meditation and daily life practice. I love metta. It helps to heal old wounds. It teaches me how to be gentler and kinder to myself. It teaches me how to see others, how to be present with them in a spacious and non-selfish way. It teaches me how to love this world, warts and all.

In my mind, I call it vitamin M. When meditation starts to feel strained, dry, or tense, or when there’s a lot of resistance, I know that I have a vitamin M deficiency. The same goes when I’m just going through life and feeling irritable, snappy, judgmental, or cynical. There’s a dryness to that experience, sort of like feeling dehydrated, only it’s the heart that is desiccated. The heart needs nourishment, and when it doesn’t get it it dries out. So many afflictive emotions are simply an expression of a desiccated heart, the way headaches can sometimes be a sign of a dehydrated body. Metta hydrates the emotional field and restores the heart’s vitality. It puts you in touch with the dimension of the beautiful and the sacred. It’s a wonderful thing.

Metta wasn’t always accessible for me. Like many others, I came into young adulthood having suffered all kinds of slings and arrows, and over the course of many years my heart had learned to coil itself away, like frightened animal quivering in a lonely cave. I found the practice hard to get into, especially when I was trying to practice metta for myself. Judging from what I’ve read and from what others have told me, I’m not alone in that. The world doesn’t make it easy on us.

There are a few issues here. One is that the untrained heart tends to recoil from each of the thousand blows it meets as it goes through life. Enough of that over time and it starts to add up; without wise guidance, we become numb, neurotic, compulsive, hateful, or depressed.

Most of us don’t get to spend a lot of time hanging out in environments where we can experience true unconditional love — just feeling totally welcome, at home and at ease, no need to impress and no need to achieve. Instead, we tend to inhabit a world of competition and judgment, often with a lot of latent or blatant hostility thrown into the mix. The messaging we get from school on up is that we’re not good enough as we are, that we need to try harder, be different, be better. That might work as a motivator in certain contexts, but it also ends up producing a lot of deep-seated negativity and self-criticism. Our basic sense of who we are comes to involve a feeling of lack: I’m the one who’s not good enough.I’m the one who’s flawed. I’m the one who can’t… who shouldn’t… who didn’t… This can make it very hard to direct metta towards ourselves. People often report feeling nothing when instructed to send metta toward themselves — the practice just doesn’t do anything. Nothing flows. There’s some sort of block.

Interestingly, this hasn’t always been the case. When Buddhaghosa composed the Visuddhimagga (probably around the 5th century), he was able to take it for granted that a basic form of goodwill toward oneself was affectively intact. In his instructions on metta, he treats self-directed metta as the easiest and most natural starting point on the grounds that each person is “dear” to themself (Vsm. IX.10, quoting the Buddha’s words as relayed in the much earlier Udāna 5.1). This was not something he felt he had to argued for; it was a simple, unquestioned presupposition, and the idea was that you could start by tapping into this basic sense of “dearness” that you feel toward yourself and then extend it outwards from there.

In modern times, we often have to reverse the order, starting with someone else and then working inwards — and that’s how teachers often present it. I have heard some people say they find it easier to send metta to someone they hate than to send it to themselves. That used to be true of me, too.

So that’s the first set of issues: no real chance to bathe in the beauty of unconditional love, and a basically unfriendly world leading to a deeply ingrained sense of ourselves as basically unworthy people.

I think there is another set of issues that, for me at least, stems from the way metta is often taught. Generally one is asked to bring to mind a particular sort of being — a benefactor or a loved one, for example — and to start sending well wishes, using certain phrases to facilitate the process: “May you be well, may you be happy, may you be peaceful.” There’s a long pedigree to this: the suttas sometimes use phrases like this when describing metta, and the commentarial tradition seems to recommend this style of practice as well.

My experience has been that verbal formulas like this work for some people and not others. I suspect they were more widely effective in ancient times because people were less in their heads, and it was easier to translate propositions into felt meanings. (The idea, of course, was always for the phrases to be a catalyst for a felt sense — one dwells pervading the four directions with a mind imbued with loving kindness; one does not dwell with a mind imbued with verbal phrases — or at least that’s not where one is supposed to end up.) But we all know what it’s like to say something over and over and have it be “mere words” for us; that’s what practicing metta with phrases sometimes feels like for people.

In any case, the phrases didn’t work for me. Somehow they just didn’t resonate. Usually a teacher will offer the invitation to find words or phrases that do resonate: if “may you be well” doesn’t work, perhaps something like “may you find joy” will work. For me, though, the difficulty had to do with the very instruction to use the phrases as a vehicle through which to access the heart quality of metta. As a highly verbal, ratiocinative person who has spent much of my life trapped up in my head, I would inevitably wind up trying to use the control tower of the intellect to generate something that can really only come from the heart. I would be sitting there saying these phrases while some part of me was trying to command a feeling into existence. Come on, may you be well! Let’s go, let’s get some good feeling in here! Then I would notice this willfulness and relax, and I would feel. . . disappointment. Not working. Can’t do it. How come I can’t feel that beautiful, blissful stuff everyone else is talking about? I needed to find other ways to open the heart and get the metta flowing.

I want to describe here a different technique that doesn’t involve the use of verbal phrases in the same way. Instead, it uses what I call “heart queries.” (Of course, I have to use words to describe the queries, but the technique works a bit differently, as you’ll see.) This is a practice that has developed organically for me over time, and I share it here in case it may be useful to others. If you want to try it, I suggest doing a first read-through of the text below and getting a general sense for what it’s saying, then sitting down to practice it in meditation. It’s a lot of text — more than is helpful in meditation instruction — but I trust you’ll be able to distill the gist and find a way to try it out in a more relaxed way.

Noticing the Love That’s Already There

The technique works like this. First, you open to feeling. This is a crucial step. Whatever feeling is there — good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, vibrant or numb — just open to it. Let it be there, and let your gentle awareness receive it as it is. This can take a lot of time. If it ends up taking the whole meditation, great. Just do the first step. If you’re numb, if you’re not in touch with your heart, if you haven’t spent a lot of time in that terrain, this can be very, very valuable. The other stuff can come later. Once you’ve opened to feeling, the next step — again, if it comes organically — is just to notice the love that’s already there. I’ll suggest that Buddhaghosa’s word still have relevance: there really is a basic sense in which we are “dear” to ourselves, and it’s a lot simpler, and a lot closer, than we might imagine. So we practice opening to that. Then, once you’ve got a feel for it, you start to extend that love outwards toward others.

So this is, in a way, returning to Buddhaghosa’s recommendation, but with an added preliminary step of opening to feeling, and with some extra support around recognizing your own “dearness.”

1. Open to feeling

   For this stage of the practice, you just want to relax the thinking mind, relax the will, let the heart be open, and coax your awareness into whatever emotional tones are present in the heartspace. If you are someone who has a hard time getting metta going, or if you spend a lot of time in your head, this step can take a little while. Let it take as long as it takes.

   As you sit and breathe, just give the heart permission to feel anything at all. Don’t try to force yourself to feel a particular way. Just allow feeling. We’re not talking so much about bodily sensations here, but about what’s present in the emotional field. What’s there? Do you feel happy or sad? Frazzled or calm? Bright or sluggish? Really allow a lot of space for the emotional field to come to the fore. I’m using words to offer some possibilities here, but what you’re opening to is not really anything to do with words. It’s a flow of tonalities, emotional textures, the stuff of mood and inner atmosphere. You can use words to guide your awareness, but drop them in lightly. “Sad? Ah, sad.” You don’t really need any more words than that.

   You can also try asking: Do you like the way things feel right now, or would you rather it be different? Pare it down to something very simple: “Like? Uh huh, like.” Or, “No, don’t like. Not liking. Wish it weren’t like this.” The simpler the better.

   If you don’t know how you’re feeling, how does that feel? Don’t know. Not knowing. Uncertain. Good— and what does not knowing feel like? It feels like this. Can you open to what “this” is pointing to? “It feels like nothing". Good— and how do you know that it feels like nothing? What in your experience tells you that? What does that feel like? You may not have words to describe an answer. That’s perfectly fine. Let the heart answer. It speaks a language of its own. Really what you are doing here is learning to listen to that peculiar language. The body can be a helpful translator. Patterns of tension in the body can tell you something about what the heart is feeling.

   Is there resistance? Clenching? Confusion? A sense that you’re somehow not doing it right? What’s the heart doing as you investigate? Just spend some time opening to this terrain, even if you can’t feel very much. Feeling will emerge gradually, like sunlight at dawn.

   Notice the pull to explain, comment, or analyze. That’s the head trying to pull you back up into the control tower. Just gently notice that as part of your experience and come back to the heartspace. Like you’re sinking down into it. You’re sinking into an amorphous territory, a non-verbal territory, but the verbal part of you tugs you back up every now and then. That’s fine, let it tug, don’t fight it. That tug is part of the experience. You’re restless. You’re uncertain. You want to figure it out. The tug is what that feels like. Just relax again and again, and gradually the tug will lose its pull. The more relaxed and non-forceful you can be, the easier it is to sink into this space. Let the heart open; let it feel. You really don’t have to do anything else.

   Sometimes I imagine the heartspace as having a kind of sprinkler system. The emotional field is all dried up, and you want to eventually get some clean water flowing. But the hose that feeds the system might be kinked and twisted, and there may be a lot of gunk in it. It’s been sitting around all winter and it’s all clogged up. You’ve got to get it flowing somehow. That’s the only way you can get to the clean water. So let the system straighten itself out, and let the feeling flow, gunk and all. You might need to massage a kink here or there. That’s called relaxing, allowing, letting go. What comes out may not be pretty at first, all sorts of mud and grime spewing through the system. Yuck. Unpleasant. But you have to let that stuff flow before the clean water can come out. But as long as you stay with it, as long as you don’t turn the hose off and walk away, the clean water will start to come. So let yourself stay with the unpleasant feelings, and trust that this is an important part of the process.

   Give this some time. Then, as feeling starts to become more apparent, just notice that even at this early stage something in you wants to get the hose working. Something in you is willing to sit there with the gunk. Something wants to unravel the kinks and get to the clean water. That’s already a little spark of metta. It may not feel like much at this point, but it’s in there. The hose may not be spouting clear water just yet, but something wants it to, something is trying to get it working, and that something is metta. See if you can let yourself appreciate that. I want to feel love. Maybe I can’t feel it yet, but I want to. I don’t want to be all coiled up. I don’t want it to be all gunky and grimy in here. I want to be bright and easeful. That’s metta. It’s in there. Trust that. That’s the spark that will grow into a flame.

2. Heart queries: noticing the love that’s already there

   As you sit quietly, breathing in and out and being gently, curiously aware of what’s going on in your heartspace, let yourself feel your way into a question. Offer this as a query to the opening heart, and keep it simple — the fewer words the better. Would you rather be safe or under threat? Pose the question honestly and let an honest answer arise in the form of a heart response. Don’t try to answer with words, and don’t assume you already know the answer. Really let the answer arise as a felt sense. Do you want to feel safe, protected, at ease? Would you like that? Or would you rather feel under threat, on guard, like you can’t relax? Let the heart speak; let it tell you what it wants in a loving tone.

   The “answer” that arises here is an expression of the love you already have for yourself. Of course you want to be safe and protected. For me, this is an easier way of tapping into that basic form of self-love than using the phrases “May I be well, May I be happy,” etc. That simple preference for safety over threat, that’s a very basic kind of love that you can notice immediately once you’ve primed the heart. You want that for yourself. Let yourself feel that, and mean it. I want to be safe. I want to be at ease. I don’t want to be in danger. Great! This is an honest, heartfelt desire for your own well-being. This is what’s going to get the stream of metta flowing. It’s not about what you should want, or what you should have. It’s not about what you deserve. It’s about how the heart responds when you drop in the query: “Threat? Or safety?” To “threat” the heart says no. To safety it says yes. In this very simple sense, you already want what’s good for you; you are dear to yourself.

   Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about specific threats or anything like that. You’re not trying to stir up intense feelings of fear or attachment. Keep it simple. Just let the heart speak in a loving tone. A simple wish for safety and protection. Sure, that would be nice. I’d like that. If this particular heart query brings up too much agitation — if the heart’s “answer” strikes a discordant note — forget it and use a different one. How about “Comfortable, or uncomfortable?” Which would you prefer? That one’s pretty uncomplicated. The answer should feel warm and gentle, even if it’s very faint. Ah, comfortable. Yeah, that would be nice. Not: “Ahh, I’m so uncomfortable, I wish I could be more comfortable, I should probably get a better cushion, maybe even a better mattress, and a back massage would probably help too, and . . .” That’s called agitation. If there’s agitation, try the query: '“Agitation, or calm?” What does the heart want?

   Go through a couple of these heart queries. The words might make it sound a little more structured or formal than it really is. It’s more of an organic process, something you feel your way into. You don’t even need words, really. I’m just using them to try to give a sense of how to feel your way into a recognition of your own dearness. Do simple queries, things that would seem obvious if you posed them as questions for the intellect, but which nevertheless have the power to open the heart to a basic form of self-love. Would you rather be depressed or happy? Burdened or buoyant? Anxious or content?

   It’s crucial not to assume you already know the answers to these queries, although in an intellectual sense you almost certainly do “know” what you’d prefer. The aim is not to get an answer in the traditional sense, but to evoke a heart response. The heart responds in feeling tones, not in words, and you have to actually let the heart speak. You can’t say, “Yeah, yeah, I already know happiness is better than being miserable, let’s get on to the next thing.” That’s the verbal mind using its own language to shut down the heart. The verbal mind knows verbal stuff; it doesn’t know feeling tones. You have to practice letting the heart speak on its own terms and opening to what it’s saying. The tone you’re looking for is gentle, warm, and loving — a simple wish for safety or ease or well-being, and the feeling of that. It feels clean, bright, wholesome. It feels blameless. It feels steady. It feels true. When a heart query brings up anything remotely like that, make much of it. Let your awareness linger there. Let the feeling swell and fill your awareness; let it come into view, and stay with it. That’s the practice.

   It may seem like a silly question whether you’d rather be happy or miserable, but what you’re doing here is reminding the heart of a basic kind of love that it doesn’t always get to experience fully. This is deeply nourishing. You might have that knowledge up in your head in the form of some propositions — “I’d rather be happy than miserable” — but we’re not talking about head knowledge here. We’re talking about heart knowledge. Let the heart remind you of what it wants. Open to that. This is what cleans the water.

   What does it feel like, when the loving heart wants what is good for you? If you’ve been closed off from your own basic goodness for a long time, it can sometimes feel like too much to bear. You may not feel ready for that kind of tenderness. Sometimes it can come with a rush of tears. These are tears of relief — the relief of putting down the burden of that flawed sense of self.

   You can continue with these heart queries for as long as you need, until you start to feel a real sense of friendly, loving warmth toward yourself. Would you rather be healthy or sick? At ease, or stressed out? Loving or hateful? Find what has resonance, and soften into the heart’s response. Stay in that territory. There doesn’t need to be a lot of thinking going on. If it starts to feel like an intellectual exercise, drop the words and simply open to the kind, loving wish for your own safety, ease, or well-being (or whatever resonates). Let that feeling pervade your body. Smile into it with your whole being. You can rest there.

   Eventually, you’ll start to lose interest in the heart queries. You don’t need them anymore. The heart is open, and you are in the field of metta.

3. Extend the love outwards

   There’s not a whole lot to say about this part. Buddhaghosa was right: once love toward self is flowing, it does tend to flow outward quite naturally to others. Often you just have to bring them into your loving awareness. Share it with them. It costs you nothing. You have an unlimited supply. It can help to bring to mind things that inspire an easy sense of goodwill: kind things others have done for you, things that inspire you, beautiful moments of human goodness and connection. Bring them to mind and let them flavor your experience of the heartspace.

   Start with easy cases, and just let it flow. People you like, people you’re friendly with, people who have helped you or benefitted you. Friends and loved ones. Nothing that will bring up complicated feelings at this point. How about your cat? Does she want to be happy and at ease? Wish for her to be happy and at ease, and let yourself feel that wish. Take that same basic wish for your own safety and ease and extend that to your cat, or your friend, or your grandmother — whoever. You can cycle through many beings, bringing them to mind one by one, or you might just relax into a general sense of radiating outwards towards all beings. Radiating outwards, or bringing them in — whatever feels more resonant for you. Just share the metta with them.

   Make sure to include neutral beings, beings that you tend not to think about very much. Beings you overlook. The person at the grocery store. The person you see walking their dog. All the animals and bugs and critters. The flying ones and the crawling ones, the scampering ones and the slithering ones. Bring them all into the field. Share it with them. There’s room for everyone in here. It’s a big, bright field of unconditional love, and it knows no bounds. Bring everyone in. They’re all welcome here. Wish for them to feel totally welcome, totally loved, totally at ease. How beautiful it is to care for all beings in this way. How precious. What does it cost you? How can something so precious cost so little?

   And then, if you’re feeling up for it, you might try working with a difficult being, someone whom you find it hard to love. This can be a very powerful practice, but if it’s out of reach, don’t let it spoil the beauty of what you’re already doing. If you try it and it brings up resistance, you can either go back to an easier case and rest there, or you can try working with your response to the difficult case in a loving way. For example, if you notice yourself feeling tense, resistant, or agitated, just relax around that and drop in another heart query: that feeling right there, that agitated feeling, would you prefer more of that, or would you prefer to be easeful, calm, and loving? Relax again into the loving wish for your own well-being. Ah, right, ease, that’s what I want. Not agitation. Ease. And then then see if you can share that with the difficult person. Can you wish them ease? If you can’t, no problem. The heart is not always ready for this.

   You might also notice that the mind that judges and resists here is different from the mind of metta. That resistance comes from a different place, a place of agitation and resentment. It’s not coming from the wise, open heart. Can you feel that? What happens when you drop back into the wise open heart and gently nudge yourself to extend a bit of compassion toward this difficult person? What happens when you bring to mind the burdens they likely place on themselves by being difficult? How clean is their water? Do they even have any? Would you like to offer them some? This is not about condoning anything they’ve done; it’s about wishing them genuine well-being, the kind that would make them more loving, patient, and kind. The kind that would help them heal. Can you wish that for them?

   You can play with this for as long as you like, but again, don’t let it spoil the beauty. If it’s too hard, back off and maybe try again another day.