Ven. Buddhaghosa says the same thing. He himself says doing metta to self will not lead to Jhana. What he says is having metta to self in the beginning is good as a point of reference to feel and understand how others prefer sukha over dukkha. And he says it is useful to check whether metta has developed up to the expected level. Nothing beyond that I think.retrofuturist wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 12:27 am It is not, if done as taught by the Buddha.
The Buddha says that one should develop mettā towards all beings with the self-abnegating love of a mother to her only son. But Venerable Buddhaghosa recommends a practice of mettā, which goes against the spirit of the Buddha word. What sort of Deliverance of the Heart can that kind of approach lead to? In pervading the directions with thoughts of mettā one has to be aware of one’s position only as a peg in the center with which to survey the world as above, below and all around. Apart from that, the Buddha has never sanctioned a selfish attitude of developing mettā to oneself. The object of mettā is not a group of persons discriminated as one’s dear, not dear or neutral but the totality of living beings which the Buddha has presented as five universals.
I know above idea is what ve. Nanananda spreaded all over the world and ven. Analayo supported.
Ven. Nananada's teacher ven. Nanarama rejected that view. Most of his students including ven. Dhammajiva rejected it, too.
Even some of ven. Nananada's students didn't accept. They all see no problem with Visuddhimagga.
Most of the forest monks in Sri lanka consider this as an attempt to cherry-pick the Visuddhimagga's mistakes.
Actually the reason behind ven. Nananada's criticisms against Visuddhimagga is not those points.
Reason is Ven. Nanananda had the "Namarupa and Sambhavesi ..etc" unothodox view because he learnt from Western monks since his young years.
Therefore he had to find out and present at least some faults of Visuddhimagga. (in the same way many others do)
You know what?
One day a meditator asked ven. Nananada ""How did bhante you develop metta?".
Ven. Nananada had replied "In the way ven. Buddhgosa said!".