Mettabhavana - The Bringing into Being of Universal Loving Kindness

In Buddhist practice the Mindfulness of Breathing practice is always balanced with a practice called the Metta bhavana. The Mindfulness of Breathing is an exercise in concentration; it is developing one's powers of attention. As such it is cognitive, to do with the powers of the mind. For Buddhists this needs to be balanced with a more emotionally based practised, one that is affective - i.e. it deals with feelings and emotions.

The Mettabhavana means "the bringing in to being (or creation) of loving kindness". English has one word for "love" but Sanskrit, line Ancient Greek has several words for it. Metta or Maitri is the word for disinterested love, it is not romantic love, or sexual love, you do not want anything from the object of your love, it is a self-less love, one that seeks to give, not to take.

In Buddhist practice the idea is that you alternate Mindfulness with Metta practice, changing it each day (if you meditate once a day) doing one after the other if you do more than one practice per day. For the Metta practice one tries to summon up a feeling, an emotion - which is why many people find it more difficult to do than the mindfulness.

The practice is divided into five stages. In the first stage one tries to develop Metta to oneself. The Buddhist perspective is that it is difficult to impossible to love or respect someone else if you do not have any love or respect for yourself. Indeed, many studies have shown that people who indulge in destructive or antisocial behaviour, violent crime or abuse etc. often have extremely low self-esteem.

Stage One: In the first stage of the meditation one tries to generate good will to oneself. One tries to remember a time when one was totally happy and content, tries to re-experience those feeling, or else you could repeat to yourself sayings, over and over again, such as "may I be well, may I be happy, may I not suffer, may I achieve all that I want from life" etc...

After about five minutes of the first stage, one moves on to the second stage.

Stage Two: One selects in ones mind's eye, a good friend. This should be someone of the same sex (to avoid sexual feelings) and roughly the same age (to avoid familial feelings). One tries to develop the same feeling of Metta towards this person "may they be well, may they be happy, may they not suffer" etc.

After about five minutes of this one can move on to the third stage.

Stage Three: For this one selects a neutral person, someone who one has no particular feelings for, positive or negative - it could be someone one has seen in the street, who has served you in a shop etc. One tries to develop the same feeling for them; they have a family, someone who loves them; they have dreams and hopes, and longings "may they be well, may they be happy, may they not suffer".

After five minutes or so of this, one moves on to the forth stage.

Stage Four: In the forth stage one selects an enemy; this could simply be someone that you do not get on with, someone who irritates you or makers you angry, it could be someone that you actively hate. Try to bring them to your mind's eye; they are a human being like you, you have a rift between you, perhaps they have been damaged or distorted somehow, perhaps life has treated them harshly, well, "may they be happy, may they be well, may they not suffer".

This can be the most difficult part of the Metta practice, one can sometimes uncover real feelings of anger and negativity towards someone that one did not know one had.

Stage Five: Finally, for the last stage, one tries to imagine all four people, oneself, the friend, the neutral person and the enemy, sitting in a circle. Lets us all be well, lest us all be happy, let us all not suffer. Try to feel the Metta for each person in the group, equally. One then starts to expand the feeling, expand the Metta out to everyone else in the room, in the locality, in the town, in the county, in the area, in the country, in the continent, out all around the world, and even out into space and all levels of existence; may all beings be happy- "Sabbe Satva Sukhi Honto". Sometimes, at this point, Buddhists recite the Metta Sutta.

The aim of the Metta practice is to develop states of positivity and love. Sometimes these are categorised by Buddhists as the four sublime states or the Brahma Viharas.