Metta Sutta Verse 8

Develop a mind of loving kindness
One of the principle words for meditation is bhāvanā, a word which literally means “causing to be” and is generally translated as “development.” Loving kindness is developed in the mind, since it is a mental state. Other traditions may speak of such things as love or consciousness being a sort of “background radiation” of the universe, but in early Buddhism the emphasis is on psychology rather than metaphysics, so loving kindness is a human emotion that needs to be “caused to be” or “made to become” in the mind of the practitioner. One does this as a formal, structured meditation, and this verse will go on to indicate that this is what the author has in mind here.

Since a single mind moment cannot contain both a wholesome (kusala) and an unwholesome (akusala) emotional tone, learning to develop the quality of loving kindness moment after moment in a sustained manner has the effect of purifying the mind as it locks out competing unwholesome states. As the matter might be paraphrased from the Dvedhāvitakka Sutta (M 19): “If one frequently thinks and ponders upon thoughts of loving kindness, one has abandoned thoughts of ill-will to cultivate thoughts of loving kindness, and then one’s mind inclines to thoughts of loving kindness.” Thus the mind stream or stream of consciousness is purified by both the presence of a wholesome state and the absence of an unwholesome state.

Although this verse is clearly alluding to formal mettā practice, there is no reason why one cannot develop a mind of loving kindness in almost any situation in daily life. Try doing so the next time you find yourself annoyed at someone, or when you notice you are in a bad mood, or even try selecting someone at random out of a crowd and use them as a target for your development of loving kindness. They might never know you are doing so, of course, but such a practice is sure to transform your own current state of mind into something more noble, more expansive, and more healthy.

Unbounded toward the entire world:
Above and below and all the way ’round,
All four Brahma vihāras (loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity) are called “immeasurable” (aparimāna) or “illimitable” (appamāna) because each of these attitudes can be expanded in experience to the point where there are no longer any boundaries. The meditation can be developed by thinking of an ever greater number of persons (from a friend to a stranger to all people in the world, for example), but more often in the classical texts it is extended using the points of the compass or the “directions.” Extending loving kindness to all those in front of one, then to all those behind, and to one side after another, and, finally, infinitely above and below to cover the zenith and nadir.

This creates the experience of being centered in an ever-expanding bubble without outer limit, in this case a bubble permeated with the emotional quality of loving kindness. Many people who practice vipassanā meditation regularly have taken to placing that practice in the context of mettā, so to speak, by spending some moments at the start of a sitting session or at the end (or both) expanding the mind in this way with loving kindness. It opens one to a larger perspective, it “limbers up” so to speak the powers of concentration, and it offers an opportunity to dedicate the merit of one’s practice to others, as some like to do.

With no holding back, no loathing, no foe.
This phrase seems to be added as a sort of garnish to the feast with the purpose of making sure the practitioner makes not exceptions while engaging in the cultivation of loving kindness. We might have a tendency to say something like “May all beings be happy (except for that jerk that cut me off in traffic this morning)” or “except for my brother who I will never forgive for doing such and such that time way back when….” This, of course, defeats the purpose of the exercise, for if it is not comprehensive it cannot be effective.

There may well be someone or other who you cannot entirely open your heart to in the bigger picture, because of the harm they have done (a character like Hitler comes to mind), but you are being asked to hold even such a person in kindness at least for the present moment. Feeling loving kindness toward an adversary or a criminal is not to forgive their transgression, but rather to put it aside for a time in order to allow for the purification of your mind. Remember, this exercise is ultimately not about them, but about you. It is not that everyone deserves loving kindness as much as that you are capable of extending it to everyone.

One way to work with this idea in your own experience is to look throughout your day for examples of people who really do not seem worthy of loving kindness and see if, as an exercise, you can generate the feeling toward them nonetheless. Perhaps it is the person who cuts you off in traffic, or the person who makes a rude comment to you, or the person you read about in the paper who commits a horrible crime, who is ideally suited to become the subject of your development of loving kindness. These are the people we so reflexively, so spontaneously, so naturally hold in our hearts with loathing, that it might be good to learn how to break the habit of doing so. It would be healthier for us, and we would gradually become better people, if we could develop the skill of transforming our most basic instincts toward hatred (and greed, and delusion). This, at least, is what the Mettā Sutta is encouraging us to do.