Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

The cultivation of calm or tranquility and the development of concentration
Maarten
Posts: 195
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:14 pm

Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Maarten »

I have just returned from a visit at Muttodaya in Germany. I have been practicing by myself for about 5 years before this, so it's my first time meeting other buddhists and meditating with them. My main practise is metta and I was sending metta to the people in the hall which was very strong at some times.
Afterwards I got the idea that some of them knew I was sending them metta by their reactions. Could this be possible?

With metta :D

Maarten
'Suppose there were a beetle, a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of him. He, because of that, would look down on other beetles: 'Yes, sirree! I am a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of me!' - SN 17.5
User avatar
ryanM
Posts: 355
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:13 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by ryanM »

I have no idea, but that's a beautiful thing nevertheless :)
sabbe dhammā nālaṃ abhinivesāya

"nothing whatsoever should be clung to"
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19943
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by mikenz66 »

I find that when I am particularly calm and sensitive (e.g. on retreats) I can "feel" how people are (agitated, calm, and so on). Not in a magical way, just taking the cues from their body language and tone without having to analyse it.

I've heard more than one teacher say that it's not really necessary to interview a student (me, for example). They can just watch how they walk in and tell their state of mind. Again, it's not magic.

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
Goofaholix
Posts: 4017
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 3:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Goofaholix »

The point of metta practice is not that it has an affect on other people, it's that it has an affect on you.

If other people feel it then it would be because they've noticed your attitude has changed.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
User avatar
Lucas Oliveira
Posts: 1890
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:07 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Lucas Oliveira »

Read the minds of others is easy and very natural. We just not doing it accurately.


Metta (Mettanisamsa) Sutta: Good Will
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Satti Sutta: The Spear
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Itivuttaka 22 - Metta Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... ml#iti-022

Itivuttaka 27 - Mettabhavana Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... ml#iti-027


:anjali:
I participate in this forum using Google Translator. http://translate.google.com.br

http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/
User avatar
_anicca_
Posts: 345
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by _anicca_ »

I'm not sure. Can you be certain that this is not just mind playing games?

However, I will say that Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi says that he has felt waves of metta, sent by others, that have washed over him - just some anecdotal evidence.

:anjali:
"A virtuous monk, Kotthita my friend, should attend in an appropriate way to the five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self."

:buddha1:

http://vipassanameditation.asia
User avatar
samseva
Posts: 3045
Joined: Sat Jan 18, 2014 12:59 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by samseva »

There are some stories of Thai forest monks and Tibetan monks and nuns where there was an encounter with a snake or some other dangerous animal. They then sent mettā which kept the animal calm or simply made the animal leave. With a hill of dangerous ants, where the monk accidently stepped on it (I think it was Ajahn Lee), the ants actually went around him rather than attack him.
User avatar
Lucas Oliveira
Posts: 1890
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:07 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Lucas Oliveira »

samseva wrote:There are some stories of Thai forest monks and Tibetan monks and nuns where there was an encounter with a snake or some other dangerous animal. They then sent mettā which kept the animal calm or simply made the animal leave. With a hill of dangerous ants, where the monk accidently stepped on it (I think it was Ajahn Lee), the ants actually went around him rather than attack him.
I remembered the Ahina Sutta

Ahina Sutta: By a Snake
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html


:anjali:
I participate in this forum using Google Translator. http://translate.google.com.br

http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10171
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Maarten wrote:Afterwards I got the idea that some of them knew I was sending them metta by their reactions. Could this be possible?
Perhaps they were picking up that you were feeling metta.
Last edited by Spiny Norman on Mon Jun 13, 2016 9:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Ben »

_anicca_ wrote:I'm not sure. Can you be certain that this is not just mind playing games?

However, I will say that Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi says that he has felt waves of metta, sent by others, that have washed over him - just some anecdotal evidence.

:anjali:
With respect, that is not evidence.

With respect to 'feeling' metta from others - I think it's far more likely that one feels metta but it is generated within oneself but attributed to an external agent.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19943
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by mikenz66 »

How about the elephant Nālāgiri?

http://www.aimwell.org/DPPN/nalagiri.html
... As the elephant was about to attack the child, the Buddha spoke to him, suffusing him with all the love at his command, and, stretching out his right hand, he stroked the animal’s forehead. Thrilling with joy at the touch, Nāḷāgiri sank on his knees before the Buddha, and the Buddha taught him the Dhamma. ...
See also: https://suttacentral.net/en/ea18.5

:anjali:
Mike
User avatar
Ben
Posts: 18438
Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Ben »

mikenz66 wrote:How about the elephant Nālāgiri?

http://www.aimwell.org/DPPN/nalagiri.html
... As the elephant was about to attack the child, the Buddha spoke to him, suffusing him with all the love at his command, and, stretching out his right hand, he stroked the animal’s forehead. Thrilling with joy at the touch, Nāḷāgiri sank on his knees before the Buddha, and the Buddha taught him the Dhamma. ...
See also: https://suttacentral.net/en/ea18.5

:anjali:
Mike
Possibly the animal was a tragic cuddle-junky.
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
_anicca_
Posts: 345
Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:44 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by _anicca_ »

Ben wrote:
_anicca_ wrote:I'm not sure. Can you be certain that this is not just mind playing games?

However, I will say that Ven. Bhante Vimalaramsi says that he has felt waves of metta, sent by others, that have washed over him - just some anecdotal evidence.

:anjali:
With respect, that is not evidence.

With respect to 'feeling' metta from others - I think it's far more likely that one feels metta but it is generated within oneself but attributed to an external agent.
Perhaps evidence isn't the right word as I am skeptical of this claim myself.
"A virtuous monk, Kotthita my friend, should attend in an appropriate way to the five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self."

:buddha1:

http://vipassanameditation.asia
Maarten
Posts: 195
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:14 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Maarten »

Spiny Norman wrote:
Maarten wrote:Afterwards I got the idea that some of them knew I was sending them metta by their reactions. Could this be possible?
Perhaps they were picking up that you were feeling metta.
Yes, this at least must have been the case. After the talk there was this old Lady just standing there smiling at me, almost like she is saying she knew. And as stated before, this Lady must have been very sensitive, and probably a very good meditator to be able to pick this up. As I don't think she had even seen me before.
'Suppose there were a beetle, a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of him. He, because of that, would look down on other beetles: 'Yes, sirree! I am a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of me!' - SN 17.5
Maarten
Posts: 195
Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:14 pm

Re: Can you feel it when someone sends you metta?

Post by Maarten »

ryanM wrote:I have no idea, but that's a beautiful thing nevertheless :)
Yes it is a beautiful idea. Maybe it would be wholesome to believe they can feel it, even if this may not be true? It would motivate the practise because you would be doing something more that just cultivating a mindstate, you would feel like you were actually making people happy.
'Suppose there were a beetle, a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of him. He, because of that, would look down on other beetles: 'Yes, sirree! I am a dung-eater, full of dung, gorged with dung, with a huge pile of dung in front of me!' - SN 17.5
Post Reply