‘To reteach a thing its loveliness’ is the nature of metta. Through lovingkindness, everyone and everything can flower again from within. ~Sharon Salzberg
I was once in such a bad way, such a low state, that, after hanging up from a contentious phone call with my children’s mother, with whom I was navigating a divorce, I said, “I wish she would get cancer and die!” I was alone, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to indulge my anger, to say the worst thing I could think of in an attempt to release the pain and frustration and helplessness I felt.
The next day—the very next day—my estranged wife phoned again, to say that she’d been to the doctor, and there was a [probably] malignant tumor that would [probably] have to be removed. And then... Who knows? she said, the implication being that she might have cancer, may even die.
I hung up, fell to my knees, and sobbed. At the time, I was staying in a cramped utility space in my cousin’s second-floor apartment, where I’d squeezed an army cot in between some piles of cardboard boxes. I hunched over the end of my cot and cried without restraint. I begged the higher powers for forgiveness, to make this woman, the mother of my children, okay. I didn’t really want her to die.
It turns out she was lying. Or exaggerating. The lump, or mass or cyst, was not malignant. In fact, I don’t think it existed. I never heard about it again. I should have been used to such crafty conduct, but still. The very next day?
In Buddhism there is a practice called mettā, in which you project thoughts of goodwill, of “lovingkindness,” unto all beings. First, you apply these intentions to yourself; then, in turn, to those you love, to acquaintances, to strangers, and finally, to those whom you despise. It’s a helpful practice that can definitely produce an increased state of well-being, harmony, and even joy. But it took me a while to trust such a practice, accustomed as I was, as a former Catholic, to the command to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” I never really understood how that was possible. How can you love someone who wants to hurt you? How can you make yourself feel something you don’t feel? Love isn’t something you can force or fabricate; it’s either there or it isn’t. Irrational doctrines like turning the other cheek or loving our enemies, for me, only led to a sense of mistrust in anyone who served up such lessons in compelled morality.
On top of my history with the Catholic church, with its incense and gold chalices and bloody sacrificial Jesus images everywhere you look, there were the years of marriage to someone who demanded love but was unable to return it. By the midpoint of our eleven-year relationship, I was reduced to the pathetic position of asking my wife if she loved me. Her response: “If you have to ask, then something is wrong with you.”
So, yeah, the idea of practicing lovingkindness was a bit of a turnoff to me. It was like someone holding a gun to my head.
Of course, one would hope to just be a kind and loving person without having to role-play, but obviously we get caught up in our own problems, and our focus can slant toward how people and situations affect us, how they make us feel, serve our needs, rather than how we can boost and support others.
I grant you that when I was going through my divorce my pride was hurt so deeply that I was not in a position to consider her needs, or the likely wounded and unattended inner child that was probably motivating her hostility towards me.
Since finally hunkering down and getting serious about a daily meditation and mindfulness practice not quite five years ago, it is this practice of lovingkindness that I have resisted the most. The writings of the Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sumedho helped me to move past this resistance by explaining that mettā—interpreted by some as lovingkindness, but elsewhere as benevolence, goodwill, or friendliness—does not mean making oneself feel something one doesn’t feel:
Mettā does not necessarily mean liking anything at all... Instead, one is witnessing the unpleasantness in a situation, thing, person, or in oneself without creating anything around it. You simply stop the mind from thinking, “I hate it, I don’t want it.”
And so, although many of the teachings focus on the projecting of loving intentions out into the world, this interpretation associates mettā not with love, but with nonresistance, and tolerance, which is a form of kindness. That isn’t the same as feeling all warm and fuzzy toward someone. An act of lovingkindness toward the self, for instance, would be allowing feelings of anger, say, or jealousy or fear, to arise, and then simply observing those feelings without judgement. Not feeling guilty about having them or trying to get rid of them, but simply detaching from the idea that this feeling makes one a bad or flawed person. Detaching from the idea that this feeling needs to be controlled or suppressed. Detaching altogether from the feeling, just watching it arise and then cease. That is an act of kindness toward the self.
It's good to practice mettā on the self first, because it is more difficult with people who are acting out against us, slandering us or trying to hurt us. But eventually, through this act of kindness, tolerance, and patience, and through other mindfulness practices—like meditation, and paying attention to the impermanence of all things—we can begin to see an enemy as we would see a tree that falls across our path, or a dog that barks at us. We don’t take the threat or the hostility personally. It just is. We learn that we can actually find some space in our heart to see the humanity in the person who antagonizes us, to see that this person is fighting their own demons. We don’t have to be friends with them, we don’t even have to be around them (in fact, that might be best; it sure is for me with my children’s mother). But this act of setting aside all the reasons to hate someone and, rather, finding a reason to... not to love, but to understand, to feel a little empathy toward whatever it is that is causing them to suffer (and most aggressors are suffering); that is an act of lovingkindness, of mettā, and it is surprisingly liberating. A weight is lifted when resentment, anger, disdain, feelings of vengeance, are, first, recognized rather than repressed or resisted, then released and allowed to go on their way, at their own pace, like a cloud drifting over and beyond the treetops.
If I could visit my thirty-three-year-old newly separated, angry, confused, and lonely self, I would not tell him that that horrible curse he uttered was bad, that he shouldn’t say such things, but I would try to gently remind him that the hatred and resistance were only blocking him from finding the peace he so desperately craved.
And maybe he wouldn’t be ready for that lesson—that would be okay.
He is ready now.
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I love this post so much, thank you. The idea that just feeling our emotions is an “act of kindness toward the self.” ❤️ ❤️
The thing I’d like to offer, as someone who struggles greatly with shame and as a therapist who has worked with people who struggle with shame, is that lovingkindness can actually feel impossible (or at least harder) when starting with oneself. Sometimes when folks have experienced childhood trauma, for example, there can be great difficulty in viewing oneself as worthy of acceptance and tolerance, let alone love and kindness. Metta is invaluable as a practice for these people, obviously. And, in my practice with folks newer to meditation, I’ve had to adjust lovingkindness practices to start with pets, best friends, and other loved ones, then move to the self and/or to others and the greater the world.
Oh my goodness Don, thank you so much for this. I have been struggling/resisting my practice in this area for quite some time. Something in your reframing from warm, fuzzy to equating tolerance and nonresistance as a form of kindness caused a huge shift for me! I never looked at it that way! I have been very focused on the warm fuzzies. Eureka!
As always, you create space in my heart, and generate deep gratitude within for your open-hearted wisdom.