The Philosophy of Metta Meditation

How love and kindness meditation practice can improve well-being and give rise to positive spiritual feelings.

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Mindfulness Meditation: A Growing Trend

Of all the world’s religions, Buddhism — in its vast manifestations — resembles that of what can be considered “philosophy” the most. That is not to say that there are not the typical elements of what we ordinary associate with religion with (namely, otherworldliness and far out their metaphysics). However, unlike most religions, the doctrines of Buddhism — most of which are referred to as sutras (aphoristic scriptures attributed to the word of the Buddha) — contain profoundly novel ethical doctrines and practical customs in which metaphysics need not be taken into account.

One of these practices is meditation. Meditation, like the different forms of Buddhism, comes in a wide variety of differing manifestations. The most popular form of meditation at the time — at least in the West — is mindfulness meditation, or, vipassana. Vipassana at bottom is simply making a strong attempt at being aware of the contents of consciousness as they are prior to our ego’s attachment to concepts towards them. So, for instance, sitting outdoors and paying attention to all of the sensations that are arising in the present moment, and not doing anything with your thoughts and/or intentions towards such sensations — simply, just being the passive recipient of them.

Philosophically, this can certainly lead to profound insights. Notions like a lack of free will, the illusion of the notion of a “self” and the non-dual nature (interdependent) of Being can be accessed through this method of meditation.

An Intentional Meditation: Metta

One form of insight that cannot, however, is ethics. The above-mentioned insights are in themselves psychological and/or metaphysical. From such principles alone, one cannot come to an ethical theory. One can use these principles as a starting point for an ethical theory, but, it is the case that there isn’t a necessary ethic that follows from these insights. One can just as easily gain a feeling of deep compassion for others as they can grow solipsistic as a result of realizing that free will is an illusion.

There is a form of meditation in the Buddhist tradition that is unambiguous in its ethics. This is the form of meditation known as Metta or loving-kindness. This form of meditation differs in that one must arrive to it with an intention — rather than the unambiguous lack of intention that other forms of meditation require. This intention is quite straight forward: wishing the most amount of positive emotion to the most amount of sentient beings in the universe. It is an ethic of universal compassion and a genuine hope that the sufferings of all things in the universe cease to be.

As with the tradition of Zen, there is a fundamental purpose in practicing Metta: it isn’t just to close your eyes and hope for the best for everybody. Rather, it is to almost re-train your manner of thinking, so as to get into the habit of becoming a more compassionate person in your daily life.

The Ethics of Metta: Universal Compassion

Universal compassion sounds quite impossible. Indeed, the psychological data indicates that we are quite limited in the number of individuals we can have empathy for. This limit is extraordinarily mediated by kin.

Those who formulated the Metta method of meditation were not blind to this. Practitioners often tell you to simply think of someone who you have unambiguously good feelings towards and to simply wish them well-being and wish that they suffer less. After doing this, you redirect these feelings towards yourself. Progressively, you do the same thing, but with people, you either have ambitious feelings towards or even ill-will towards. While hard, this is certainly possible. And when we are capable of doing this, we are instructed to look more abstractly into the concept of well-being. For instance, just picture children smiling and playing, and realize that this is occurring in huge numbers throughout the world: that is a large amount of joy, and it is possible for this joy to be spread.

The “End-Goal” of Buddhism: The End of Suffering

Philosophically, the hope that this joy is expanded serves several purposes: firstly, it is an alleviation of your own suffering. This is why we are instructed to try to wish joy upon people we do not like: our hatred for them simply hurts us, and if your “enemy” was truly happy and not suffering, they would likely be a better person and in turn, help make the universe a better place. They would be less hateable, and in turn, would make your life a lot easier — all hatred can do is serve to stress out the one who is doing the hating, and hence, increase their own suffering. And so too with all of the suffering in the universe: the more of it there is, the worse a place it is to be for everyone, including yourself. Hence, it isn’t contrived to really think to yourself, “I hope the suffering of as many people as possible is alleviated and replaced with joy.”

Let them cultivate the thought: May all be well and secure, May all beings be happy… Let none deceive another Or despise any being in any state; Let none wish others harm In resentment or in hate. (Metta Sutta)

This is the fundamental ethical doctrine of Buddhism — the “goal” of the eightfold path: the end of suffering for as many as possible, through compassion. Metta is a method of contributing to this, by cultivating the habit of compassionate thought-patterns, so as to translate such thought patterns over into average-everyday behavior. This isn’t New Age spiritualism (thoughts cannot merely manifest new things into reality, nor can I heal the world through my thoughts like some sort of genie): rather, it is mental training, with the understanding that there is a parallelism between one’s thoughts and actions, whereby both have a profound influence upon one another.

Start With Who and What You Know

Metta is quite akin to Spinoza’s notion of self-love: Metta meditation allows the individual who is practicing it to feel happiness, simply as a result of contemplating the happiness and non-suffering of others.

If you sit down and ruminate on a loved one's happiness, this is a surefire way of feeling happy yourself. That is simply what Metta is, at least in its early stages. This seems to hold a similar purpose to that of Spinoza’s notion of self-love: when you are able to feel happy as a result of contemplating the happiness of others, you feel happy yourself; when you are happy, it is far easier to be compassionate towards yourself, and in turn, display self-love. Only then are you able to begin extending the scope of your compassion, which was the ultimate ethical intention, to begin with.

Truly, it is an objectively good thing to be as compassionate as possible: for as many people to be as compassionate as they can be, both towards others and towards themselves.

Perhaps this is an idealistic scenario — what ethical doctrine isn’t? However, what is not idealistic is sitting down and truly hoping that those in your life — and eventually, trying with those who are not in your life — are free of suffering and are more and more capable of joyously; and, as a result, projecting such positive feelings back onto yourself. We are either lying, are extremely ignorant, and/or are deeply in the constraints of some form of mental illness when we say that such a scenario is something we do not want. We really want happiness for ourselves, those we love, and fundamentally, everything that can have happiness. Such a scenario is a win-win for all. Even if you are an egoist this is something you must want. Our lives are miserable when everyone else is miserable, including strangers. Hence, it is in our rational self-interest to be compassionate towards others.

However, aside from appealing to those who might be skeptical above, Buddhism is the antithesis of egoistic in the intentionality of Metta. To paraphrase Nietzsche — from Human, All Too Human, I believe — there is something highly suspect about someone who feels that they need reasons to be ethical. “I am only going to be compassionate towards others because it’ll make my life easier,” seems to miss the point. While you are one amongst many sentient beings who requires happiness, your happiness isn’t the reason why all of the happiness that can exist matters. Universal happiness and the end of suffering as such is what matters.

Not everyone will be convinced of this, however. This is why one might mention the egoistic reasons for being compassionate. That is the Bodhisattva way: to convince others to act in the name of universal compassion and the promotion of the end of suffering through less explicit means — though, means which are fundamentally true, as lying is never an effective way to promote the way of Metta (liers are figured out, and when they are, that simply adds to the suffering of existence through mistrust.)

Metta can be started quite easily. Simply carve out about 10 minutes of quiet time today and think of someone you love unambiguously, with no strings attached. For the first 8 minutes, continuously wish them the best. Think about what makes them happy, and actively hope that such things repeatedly occur in their life. Think of what makes them sad, and hope that as little of that happens to them as possible. The last 2 minutes, redirect such thoughts towards yourself. And all throughout, try to deliberately maintain this stream of positive thinking. You’ll find that you’ll walk away happier. Make Metta a habit and you will find that feelings and actions of compassion towards others will become easier with time and effort.

This is a skill worth cultivating, not just for your own well-being, but for that of others: in practicing Metta, you are not only displaying the fact that you care about yourself, but also that you care about others, and in doing so, it will become far easier to be compassionate towards others, including strangers. Hence, Metta is truly a way of sharpening the knife of your ethical aptitude, for, one’s ethical aptitude is truly commensurate with how much well-being they bring to the world versus how much suffering they bring to it.