Metta and insight meditation

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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purist_andrew
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Metta and insight meditation

Post by purist_andrew »

Hi guys,

Long time on- and off-lurker.

I have asked this question in different words on the old board E-Sangha but I did not get a satisfactory answer. I would like to ask you guys your opinion on how to manage metta and insight together.

For a long time I have been using mantras to cultivate karuna and metta on my daily exercise and travel walks. It is mostly to cultivate merit as the methodical cultivation of metta is said in the suttas to be of great merit. I also use it to try to graft the tendencies on loving-kindness into my mind and I have noticed it has indeed influenced my tone of voice and kind tendencies towards others as I have hoped.

But where I run into a problem is how to manage metta and mindfulness meditation together. The metta sutta says "let him maintain this [metta] mindfulness at all times." I have also been reading Bhante G's new lovingkindness book ("Loving-kindness in Plain English: The Practice of Metta") and he suggests to make metta a vehicle, the ground you stand on and with other similes also found in the scriptures. He said it clears the way of mental defilements for mindfulness meditation. But how can one maintain two mindfulnesses? (One metta, one vipassana?)

When I first started practicing Dhamma I did both anapanasati and metta simultaneously but I would like to ask how you think metta would fit into the context of the methodical, and preferably full-time systematic cultivation of mindfulness? It would seem to be my first thought that mindfulness needs to attend to one moment of the four foundations after another, thus leaving no room for metta in between mindfulness moments.

It would seem to me that the only answer might be to set aside certain periods of time, say, a few hours a week, or certain parts of the day, to cultivate metta as a support for conduct and merit, and to keep vipassana within its own range (four foundations, not metta) as a full-time practice. Other than that I cannot see how metta would fit into a full-time, systematically cultivated mindfulness practice.

Please share your thoughts on this.

Thank you, dear Dhamma friends.
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

In the Mahāsi tradition, the four protections are used to support insight practice. If your mind is clear, then you can practice satipaṭṭhāna vipassanā, i.e. the four foundations of mindfulness.
  1. If it is defiled by anger, then practice metta until it is clear again.
  2. If it is defiled by lust, then do the 32 body parts contemplation.
  3. If it is defiled by fear or doubt, practise the recollection of the Buddha's qualities.
  4. If it is defiled by laziness, contemplate the uncertainty of life and the certainty of death.
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bodom
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by bodom »

Mindfulness means to keep something in mind. So in this case when you are remembering to keep metta in mind your are effectively cultivating metta and mindfulness at the same time. Metta and the rest of the brahmaviharas should be the foundation of your awareness.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
justindesilva
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by justindesilva »

bodom wrote:Mindfulness means to keep something in mind. So in this case when you are remembering to keep metta in mind your are effectively cultivating metta and mindfulness at the same time. Metta and the rest of the brahmaviharas should be the foundation of your awareness.

:anjali:
In the practise of meditation ( bhavana ) in buddhist practise two main components are expressed out of which Ana pana sati bhavana and Metta bhavana brings in tranquility or cooling of the mind. It calms the mind in preparation for vipassana or vidarshana meditation where as vipassana helps to awaken the mind on enlightment. It breaks down the events of darma with our existence to understand day to day darma.
Therefore Metta bhavana helps to develop compassion and is not direct vipassana. But Metta bhavana if practised properly helps tranquilising the mind, and to maintain general health , and then to control defilements.
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bodom
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by bodom »

justindesilva wrote:Therefore Metta bhavana helps to develop compassion and is not direct vipassana..
I didnt say it was.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by purist_andrew »

Hi Guys, Bhante,

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate that preliminary metta pratice is a support for insight and against aversion as are the other guardian meditations.

It is suggested in many circles to do metta before any type of vipassana based on the Buddha appeasing the devas in his instructions to his bhikkhus.

However what I can't get past is another issue. The "mindfulness" of metta (Metta Sutta, simile of the saw) are suggested to be kept in mind at all times. How can we square keeping in mind the simile of the saw with keeping in mind the four focuses of mindfulness? AFAICT, additionally, insight meditation needs to keep moment by moment aware of what is going on in the domain of insight. It seems to me that doing metta to maintain its mindfulness constantly, as for metta sutta, merit, softening/"en-kinding" the mind and all other similar purposes (eg make a vehicle of it, all the instructions to do it on a much greater scale than just say 10 minutes before anapanasati) would interfere with the continuity of being mindful of insight one moment by moment.

Again metta is said in the suttas to be abundantly fruitful for merit when made much of. So I would like to do it for an hour or so a day or more if it can be squared with insight. Specifically the meditation with 11 benefits not just a temporary support for vipassana.

Please share your thoughts on this matter.

Thanks, friends, Bhante, all.

-Andrew
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bodom
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by bodom »

See the Sedaka sutta:
"Monks, the establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself." The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after others." When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.

"And how do you watch after others when watching after yourself? Through cultivating the practice, through developing it, through persuing it. This is how you watch after others when watching after yourself.

"And how do you watch after yourself when watching after others? Through endurance, through harmlessness, through a mind of goodwill and through sympathy. This is how you watch after yourself when watching after others.

"The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself. 'The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought , "Ill watch after others.' When watching after others, you watch after yourself. When watching after yourself, you watch after others.

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
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purist_andrew
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by purist_andrew »

bodom wrote:See the Sedaka sutta:
"Monks, the establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself." The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after others." When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.

"And how do you watch after others when watching after yourself? Through cultivating the practice, through developing it, through persuing it. This is how you watch after others when watching after yourself.

"And how do you watch after yourself when watching after others? Through endurance, through harmlessness, through a mind of goodwill and through sympathy. This is how you watch after yourself when watching after others.

"The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself. 'The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought , "Ill watch after others.' When watching after others, you watch after yourself. When watching after yourself, you watch after others.

:anjali:
Bodom, thank you for the sutta quote.

I have seen that when I am meditating I indeed tend to have more forbearance in mind and less emnity or inclination to be agitated with others as the sutta quote implies.

But what does it mean in practical terms? I don't think insight practice on materiality/mentality counts as metta bhavana. They seem like two separate and not congruent practices to me. Metta bhavana mantras (a la Metta Sutta "May all beings...") and keeping in mind at all times the simile of the saw for the purpose of patience and non-anger under trying circumstances (the sutta says to keep the simile in mind at all times) does not seem to square with the way I understand we are told to practice insight full-time..

(intro to "Way of Mindfulness" Satipatthana Sutta commentaries)
The Way of the Arousing of Mindfulness sets forth the whole duty of the meditator, and provides for every phase of the process of training for insight. It is strenuous whole-time work, and only resolute hearts in whom the consciousness of life's suffering runs deep, could hope to pursue it to the end, the attainment of arahantship.
It seems they take different fields, metta the images or mantras or beings to aim metta at, or the ideal or determination of non-anger, and insight the mentality/materiality of the four foundations within oneself, which needs to be continuous one moment to next.. I would think having metta going on at the same time would break that continuity.

As I said when I first started practicing years ago I found doing both at once helpful but then I was just a beginner. If I wanted to practice until Nibbana I would want to be sure I have the structure and practice technique down seriously.

Right now my hunch is to set aside certain periods of the day or the week for metta, but to make satipatthana a full-time practice otherwise.

Edit: I just wanted to share the following quote I believe is from the Metta Sutta to illustrate how this making metta a "vehicle" or full-time practice is more than 10 minutes on the cushion before anapanasati. The following should illustrate what I mean:
... with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,

Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
Thanks guys,
Andrew.
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by User156079 »

purist_andrew wrote:
bodom wrote:See the Sedaka sutta:
"Monks, the establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself." The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after others." When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself.

"And how do you watch after others when watching after yourself? Through cultivating the practice, through developing it, through persuing it. This is how you watch after others when watching after yourself.

"And how do you watch after yourself when watching after others? Through endurance, through harmlessness, through a mind of goodwill and through sympathy. This is how you watch after yourself when watching after others.

"The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought, "Ill watch after myself. 'The establishings of mindfulness is to be practiced with the thought , "Ill watch after others.' When watching after others, you watch after yourself. When watching after yourself, you watch after others.

:anjali:
Bodom, thank you for the sutta quote.

I have seen that when I am meditating I indeed tend to have more forbearance in mind and less emnity or inclination to be agitated with others as the sutta quote implies.

But what does it mean in practical terms?
I think that we are meant to be ever mindful thus watching over ourselves is what is meant.
Mindfulness (Sati) is established on the Satipatthanas whilst Metta Is a different practice meant to do different things, there are not two types.
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WindDancer
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by WindDancer »

Thank you for the question and for each of your replies.

I have had similar quandaries in the past. I am much more familiar with practical daily life practice than I am with formal Sutta study. I just wanted to share what I have been taught by some great teachers. Living their suggestions has paid great dividends.

They suggest that we give ourselves wholeheartedly to formal sitting meditation practice of mindfulness or the practice of the Brahma Viharas as we feel inspired to do.

When it comes to daily life practice, they suggested that I remember that love is a verb, an action word. They taught me to continuously look for opportunities to show up in love and service in real life, engaging in acts of service with an open and loving heart. I was taught to start in simple ways. For example, when I go to the grocery, I should park out away from the store as an act of compassion for others. As an act of generosity and compassion, I am giving up the parking spaces that are closest to the store so that those more in need may be helped. On the walk to the store, I scan the parking lot and try to find one or two shopping carts which have been left loose in the lot. Again, as an act of love and service, I try to choose the carts that would have the most likely chance of denting or scratching the cars in the parking lot if the wind picked up. As I take the carts into the store, I practice loving kindness and do my best to radiate loving kindness to all beings, especially thinking of the usually unacknowledged workers who would have had to bring these carts in later.

I do my best to keep an open loving heart as I move through the store, looking for opportunities to be of service to others, to share a smile or short conversation or to allow others the opportunity to go ahead of me. The whole experience is an experience and expression of loving kindness and compassion, and the truth is my level of mindfulness is sharp, strong and present.

Here is another example. I walk and feed my dogs twice per day, and then give them their medications and supplements. We walk for 20 to 30 minutes. Most days I don't just mindlessly or grudgingly tend to their needs. As part of my daily life practice, I do my best to show up in love and service to my animal friends during the entire process. This is love in action. I practice loving kindness while gathering the dogs and putting on their leashes. I mindfully stay in the present moment while radiating loving kindness to them during each stage of the walk. I take moments to really soak in the sights, sounds, smells and the physical sensations, saying small prayers of thankfulness. My mindfulness and presence is strong while radiating loving kindness and a boundless grateful heart. I continue this process while feeding the pups and giving them their medications and supplements.

Typically I need a rest after I complete this routine due to having chronic illnesses. Long ago I used to get frustrated that the dogs kept nudging me, wanting attention while I was trying to rest. I changed my attitude, remembering love is an action word.

Now I practice loving kindness dog petting meditation while I am resting. I am fully present and mindful of the pain and weariness I feel while at the same time being present with my experiences of petting the dogs. The entire time I continue cultivating a boundless radiating heart of love and compassion.

These are just two examples from my regular daily life practice. There is no conflict between mindfulness and Metta in this type of practice. My mindfulness is exceptionally strong and crisp while cultivating loving kindness and compassion. I have been living this way for so long that I naturally watch for opportunities to show up in love and service all throughout the day, and I experience an open and loving heart as a way of being unless I get extremely tired or agitated for some reason.
May you find the balance for which you are looking.

Namaste,

WindDancer
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purist_andrew
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by purist_andrew »

Thank you for your informative reply, Winddancer, and sharing your thoughts and experience.

Your type of action reminds me of what I read in Nyanaponika Thera's work "The Four Sublime States"
Love, embracing all beings: small and great, far and near, be it on earth, in the water or in the air.

Love, embracing impartially all sentient beings, and not only those who are useful, pleasing or amusing to us.

Love, embracing all beings, be they noble-minded or low-minded, good or evil
We can train ourselves to embrace beings and extend kindness and compassion in daily life. This is reverence and love. We can also pervade feelings of metta and kindness and care to beings around us while, for example, on the bus or train or in my case, on an exercise walk or to or from my friend's house at night.

I also like to do small acts of kindness, like leaving the seats near the front of the bus for elderly or disabled, or looking up bus times for passengers waiting for the bus on my cell phone, giving change to people who need to break two single dollar bills to get on the bus, and so on. I take great inspiration from your example in this area and hope I can find many more ways to help others in daily life and make this one of my main practices.
(Edit: this makes me think that it's a good daily-life way to overcome what is referred to in the suttas, esp. the suttas on heaven/hell and King Yama as "negligence," the overcoming of which is a monumentous acheivement).

I think, but am not sure, this can complement insight-mindfulness as we can be mindful but still pervade kindness and embracing beings while doing insight.

Still, I think that the best way to make great merit and radically transform one's disposition is through methodical mantra or visualization.

I think this is making metta the "vehicle," as it is said ie full time methodical meditation such as the quote in Metta Sutta "[Let him think:] May all beings be happy and secure." Bhante G's new book says to let the images and feelings and even colors of this mindfulness be your vehicle as they develop from mantra practice, listing dozens of different mantras for all beings' well-being. Similarly with extending metta gradually from oneself to friends, neutral persons, enemies, the whole world, deva and woeful realms, etc.

Let me quote more from Nyanaponika to illustrate these points further:
Generally speaking, persistent meditative practice will have two crowning effects: first, it will make these four qualities sink deep into the heart so that they become spontaneous attitudes not easily overthrown; second, it will bring out and secure their boundless extension, the unfolding of their all-embracing range.
So I think for now my idea will be to pervade kindness as much as possible, literally "taking care" and embracing the beings around me, doing small deeds of kindness, but primarily to cultivate more merit and make metta my spontaneous tendency of character, to allocate certain periods of the week (hours) for meditative practice of metta. Satipatthana seems to me to be the most important though, and I aspire to have a consistent practice.

In the meantime, I will do the meditation on metta mentioned. Another book I am fond of is "Analysis of Perfections" from BPS and it says under the parami of morality the man of virtue perfects this meditation to make his mind naturally resplendent with kindness towards and extending towards all beings.

Thank you very much Winddancer for your valuable reply and I hope more of you can chime in with your thoughts and other ideas.
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WindDancer
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Re: Metta and insight meditation

Post by WindDancer »

Thank you purist_andrew for your beautiful, thoughtful and insightful comments and exploration of this issue.

As I mentioned above, I have had similar questions, especially how to balance my actual formal sitting practice with my intentions and aspirations. I am following the guidance of Gil Fronsdal. Once I get settled in a meditative state, I drop in the question, "What form of meditative practice do I need at this time?" I have discovered that I am truly inspired to grow in mindfulness right now, and I have been for the last four years or so. My primary practices for years have been concentration meditation or periods of meditative reflection. I am a visual artist, so I can visualize quite well. I enjoy visualization meditations when my mind is quite active, but this approach doesn't work as well for me if I am trying to get to deeper states or to create the conditions for insight.

The balance that works best for me right now is to focus on mindfulness meditation most of the time and engage in formal Brahma Vihara meditative practices as a supplement to my overall practice. It works best for me to do a little each day and engage in longer periods of practice as I feel the need.

In addition to my ongoing approach, I pull out and use these powerful practices when the need becomes apparent. For example, throughout most of 2006 and 2007, my daughter and her boyfriend were engaged in acts of child neglect/abuse and animal cruelty. Several of us did all we could to care for the children and animals as we worked with my daughter and boyfriend to turn the situation around. Finally we had to involve social services. Instead of making a few positive changes, they chose to skip town and leave the state to prevent getting in trouble. They have hidden themselves from me for over 10 years, not allowing me have contact with my daughter or grandchildren.

In 2013 my daughter, grandchildren and now husband let the family know that they planned to come to a Thanksgiving gathering at my father's home. I knew from talking with other family members that my daughter and her husband were still intensely angry with me. To prepare myself to be in their presence, I dedicated myself to the practice of loving kindness meditation every day for three weeks. I set the intention to be the presence of love and peace despite the attitudes and actions of others. The results were fantastic. I entered a very challenging situation, feeling grounded and settled. My daughter and her husband were seething with venomous anger and hostility toward me, and several of the members of the family sided with them against me so they could have access to the grandchildren. I continued to practice loving kindness and renewed my intentions to be a presence of love and peace as I endured six hours of hateful looks, comments and actions. I was amazed that all these attempts to harm me just flowed over and by me as I remained stable, grounded and at peace, loving them with compassion despite their feelings toward me. The truth was clear. They were quite ill and in true torment and pain. Spiritually healthy and happy people don't act that way. This experience increased my faith to nearly 100% that the Brahma Vihara practices truly worked.

Here is another example. My home is on 2 1/2 acres. I mow 2 acres of it with a riding mower. One of my closest neighbors is a very angry person who regularly makes disparaging comments about most of the people who live in the area surrounding him. He seems always angry at me. Frequently we both will be out mowing our own properties at the same time. He scowls at me but will not look directly at me. A few times he has come within 20 feet of me as our mowers pass each other, going in opposite directions, and he refuses to even acknowledge that I exist. I have taken on the practice of using loving kindness meditation in his presence. I get calm and quiet while slowing down the speed at which I am mowing. Then I slowly and silently recite the loving kindness phrases as I do my best to radiate boundless love, compassion and kindness toward my neighbor despite him directing hostility and contempt toward me. It has worked well. I have a brotherly love for him and have a feeling of sadness and compassion for such a bitter and angry man. I get a laugh sometimes when I think, "I bet he would be furious if he knew how much love and caring I have for him in my heart." :)
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