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Metta meditation
Fenix
Veteran
Could someone give me some instructions for metta? I believe its like say breathing meditation, just the focus on "loving kindness"(what ever that is!) then on the breath, right?
Also is it pratical to do metta in the early evening and breathing meditation twice in the later on? I guess so, right?
Love Fenix
Also is it pratical to do metta in the early evening and breathing meditation twice in the later on? I guess so, right?
Love Fenix
0
Comments
I used the Metta meditation described in these talks. I recommend the whole series as background on the four immeasurables. Here is the metta meditation specifically: Say each line, rest, and watch what comes up. Don't try to do anything with what comes up, just watch and rest. Then move on to the next line. Go slowly. If it takes you less than 15 minutes to get through the four lines, you're probably going too fast.
A more direct approach to metta, which I have pursued relatively recently, is to simply open one's heart to some or all aspects of the experience of the present moment in the same way that one open's one's heart to a loved one. This is described to some extent in this essay.
I assembled this:
Metta Sutta in English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FBzpxJh5Ck
There is also the chant of Metta Bhavana; Which I believe was composed by Buddagosa.
This is powerful:
The chant of Metta (Suffusing loving Kindness)English Language Version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9xGuU32LWA
There are some instructions and an audio on loving kindness meditation (metta) at the Buddhanet site link below, as well as information about the Four Sublime States.
http://www.buddhanet.net/metta.htm
Kind regards,
Dazzle
.
He instructions are to send loving thoughts to yourself; meditating on the feeling and then sending loving kindness to an individual.
I am was wondering if this is the specific practice the Buddha taght that is used to overcome the hinderance of ill-will.
As far as I know, the method you describe was designed by Buddhaghosa in the 5th Centory; based on the Buddha's Discourses on Metta and the Divine Abodes. We would need to look at the Suttas. Not all of those are translated.
I am the author of the video you are watching with the instructions on Metta from Bhante Vimalaramsi.
In fact he teaches Metta as part of the practice of the Brahma Viharas or Divine abodes.
Bhante Vimalaramsi, whom I study with, is an American monk of 30+ years. He studied in the great monasteries of Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand. He did a 2 year retreat with U Pandita and many other monks. Finally they said he they had nothing left to teach him and told him to go teach. He did not feel that what he learned was really the end of the path so he went to Sri Lanka and taught Metta and not Vipassana. While he was there he went a Sri Lankan monk Venerable Panaji who told him to go back to the Suttas and throw out the commentaries by Buddhaghosa. He did so and went to the jungle of Thailand and spent 3 months in a cave practicing only with the Suttas as his guide.
He found a "new" path through to enlightenment through the Brahma Viharas and says this is mentioned by the Buddha many many more times than the breath.
You develop Metta as the first instruction and THEN this becomes and changes to compassion then sympathetic joy and finally Equanimity with the end of the goal of Nibbana itself reached.
I practiced Metta and Vipassana for 20 years and had come to the conclusion also that it did not really work as said. And finally Bhante V has said that this is in fact right. Please read more about how he teaches at his site dhammasukha.org. The practice if followed with the "relax step" is incredibly powerful. I do know this.
And the goal is to not only eradicate ill will but also sensual desire and ignorance that we have a self.
with Metta
david
san jose ca
Metta Prayer
May all beings be happy
May all beings be healed and whole
May all have whatever they want and need
May all be protected from harm, and free from fear
May all beings enjoy inner peace and ease
May all be awakened, liberated and free
May there be peace in this world,
and throughout the entire universe.
The Buddha himself said that if you repeatedly practice this meditation and recitation - with a forgiving, loving heart, while relinquishing judgement, anger and prejudice - great benefits will definitely ensue: You will sleep easily, wake easily, and have pleasant dreams; people will love you; celestial beings will love you and protect you; weapons, poisons, fire and other external dangers will not harm you; your face will be radiant and your mind concentrated and serene; and you will die unconfused and be reborn in happy realms.
Namaste
Towards creatures in these directions, one should have this aspiration: Usually I use Buddhaghosa's method, but sometimes I follow the Buddha's method. Both are very challenging. The Buddha's method has the benefit of an immediate feeling of opening and spaciousness that doesn't necessarily occur with Buddhaghosa's. You can combine the two, using aspirations like those described above and, instead of going from person to person, go from geographic region to region. For example, open your heart to the people in the East, then West, then North, then South, then upwards, then downwards. With the Buddha's method, you should focus on a feeling of "openness" in what is called the "heart-space." If you need to find your heart-space, simply thing of a situation that makes you feel resentful (we all have at least one). You will feel a sense of contraction somewhere in the chest, a sense of wanting to withhold compassion and goodwill. Metta is the opposite of this feeling -- a spaciousness and openhearted quality.
I think Buddhagosa's method can be inferred from the Suttas:
"May these beings be free from animosity,
free from oppression, free from trouble, and
may they look after themselves with ease."
or
"May all beings be
free from enmity, affliction and anxiety,
and live happily:"
In the Path of Purification {Vishuddhimagga} Buddhaghosa applied this specifically to the 6 kinds of people.
Yes, but only on the initial stages because the the Method of radiating to the directions in the way the Buddha teaches is very hard to practice and understand for beginners. Bhante Vimalaramsi found Buddhaghosa's method worked quite well for the preliminary stages of meditation.
After the meditator has master the various people that have been mentioned elsewhere, then they are directed to go to the directions and start radiating Metta.
Now the difference here is that others split the meditation into 4 different meditations-but actually the meditation will naturally change when you have master the Metta and the feeling will transform to Compassion and then to Joy and finally to Equanmitiy. And you continue to the 8 level of nothingness after which your mind drops into the 7th jhana and after some time there you arrive at Cessation of Perception of Feeling and Perception. After your mind turns back on you see dependent origination -the arising and the ceasing. Becuase this is such an amazing awakening experience your mind experiences Nibbana. This the blowing out of the fire of conditioned existence. You then come back from this eperience of completely letting go full of joy. There is a little more to this but this is enough of an explaination for now.
This is all in correlation with the suttas. Buddha Ghosa says you can only experience the 3rd jhana with Metta and equanimity with the 4th jhana but in fact you can experience up to the 4th Jhana with Metta and the 5th, 6th, 7th Jhana with compassion, joy and equanimity. The 8th arises when the 7th is fully penetrated.