This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Introduction to Metta and Equanimity with Diana Clark. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Intro to Metta and Equanimity - Diana Clark

The following talk was given by Diana Clark at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 23, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Intro to Metta and Equanimity

Good evening, welcome. It's nice to see you all. Many of you know that I did a series of four classes on introduction to mindfulness meditation, and now I'm going to do two more. I was thinking, what should I call these? Ancillary, or extra credit? I don't know. But for two more weeks, each week will be a different practice that is a support for mindfulness practice, or it can even be a practice instead of mindfulness. Tonight, I'm talking about the Brahma Viharas¹, more specifically Metta².

The word in Pali³ is Brahmavihāra. You don't need to know that word; it's about warm-heartedness, loving-kindness, compassion, these types of things. Maybe I'll just start by saying I appreciate this so much: that in this practice, there is this recognition—and I can say that I have this from my own experience as well—that we don't have to wait for the perfect conditions to arise, where we've had enough sleep, we're not hungry, and the people that we're with are perfectly behaved, until we have this feeling of warm-heartedness or compassion or care for others. Instead, it's something that we can actively cultivate in a meditation practice, and then it just starts spilling out. It starts spilling out at the grocery store, with the family, while driving—these types of things. It's quite something that we can intentionally cultivate this warm-heartedness.

Some of you might know this is called a Metta practice. I did think it was kind of interesting that when Facebook renamed themselves, we pronounce it Meta, and we use that same pronunciation for this Pali word, Metta. So, loving-kindness Facebook? I don't know. [Laughter] Well, I'll let you decide. Maybe Facebook could have a little bit more Metta; maybe that's their aspiration, so they renamed themselves that.

Maybe I'll start with a confession. I was on a retreat—actually, this was a short retreat—and all this rage just showed up. I had no idea. It wasn't for any individual in particular; it was just so much anger about everything. It was really, really striking. I was consumed with this rage and anger. When I spoke with the teacher about it, the teacher recognized this: "Yes, this does happen." And I have seen this also now that I'm a retreat teacher; I do see this sometimes happens in practice. We might even say it's a particular stage of practice. But the recommendation that this teacher gave to me was, "Oh, you should do Metta practice." I was like, "I'm not going to do Metta practice." I had this idea like, "Oh, that's too sentimental," or "I don't need a warm heart, I just need the world to be different," or something like this. But now I wish I had a different view from way back then. I have a completely different view now, but I just wanted to share that sometimes when we first encounter this, we might feel a little bit awkward in the beginning. Not for everybody; for some people, they take to it like fish to water. But for me, it wasn't initially something that I took to. But I did subsequently. I guess I spent five years teaching loving-kindness a few times a week for years and years, and I can just say, wow, my life just really changed. Not only doing it for myself but teaching it really had an impact on my life. So I'm just offering that as something to consider.

What is Metta?

So what is Metta, and what is Metta practice? What is it that Diana is talking about here?

Well, maybe I'll introduce it by saying that Jack Kornfield, who many of you might be familiar with—he has a number of well-known books, he's one of the senior-most teachers in this particular tradition—when he talks about mindfulness, he's no longer using this word "mindfulness." He's using "loving awareness." Loving awareness. This way of being aware, but that also includes the heart, that also includes some care. Maybe this loving awareness is a way of noticing whatever there is to be noticed, but with an attitude of, "It's okay, it can be here. It's all right. This is how it is right now." As opposed to so often when we're doing mindfulness practice, we might not even notice it, but there's this quiet little voice in the back of the mind like, "I'm doing mindfulness so that I can get rid of some feeling," or "I'm doing mindfulness so that I can manufacture or create or engineer or somehow have some particular experience arise." This loving awareness instead is a whole different way. It's like, no, we're just noticing to notice, and to care, and show respect and honor for what's actually happening.

So Metta meditation is the "loving" part of loving awareness. It's a distinct practice from mindfulness meditation. I brought in that anecdote about Jack Kornfield just to show how it's an integral part of mindfulness, but the practice is distinct. I'll talk about that today, and we'll do a little bit of that today.

Metta can be translated in many different ways, including benevolence, goodwill, care, warmth, maybe even a certain amount of respect, loving-kindness. How I learned it was as loving-kindness or loving-friendliness or something like this. You know, I kind of like the expression "warm-heartedness." It's a way of not being cold or disconnected, but instead of disconnecting with our head, bringing our hearts to whatever it is that we're doing.

We all know what it is to love, to care for, to have some intimacy with, or to have warmth towards. We often have love for our family members and those people that are close to us, and different types of love for different individuals. Metta is what we might say is a maybe expansion or a maturation of love. So it has love, but it's not exactly the same as what we would say in English. What do I mean by that expression, "expansion and maturation"? Metta is a quality of the heart, and the direction we're going is that this warmth, this care, is for whomever and whatever comes in the mind or crosses our path. It's not reserved just for those specific individuals that we know and have relationships with. It's just this sense of warmth and care for everybody. It's quite something to feel care for people even though you don't know them.

So instead, it's a different type of love. It's not based on necessarily intimacy, but it's based on... unconditional. Yes, it's unconditional love, thank you. And it's based on... I'm holding my hands in front of my chest here because it's like the heart gets soft and warm, and it offers just this warmth to everybody and anybody. So it's this basic wish for goodwill for all beings.

And maybe I should also say, Metta persists despite difficulties or despite whatever might be arising. Even though we might feel irritated, it doesn't mean that Metta isn't there also.

So Metta is one of the Brahma Viharas. This is a word that I said, Brahma Vihāra. Vihāra we can translate as "abiding," and Brahma, there's a number of different ways we can translate that. For this purpose, we'll do "divine." And vihāra could be an "abode." So sometimes it's like the Divine Abodes, like the heavenly realms, almost. So when your heart has this Metta in it, it's like a heavenly experience is what's being pointed to.

There are four different flavors or types of the Brahma Viharas. "The Divine Abodes" is a good English translation. So Metta, as I just described, is like this goodwill for whomever. And then as Metta grows and proliferates, it just starts going out to more and more and more beings. And it's natural that it'll meet beings that are suffering, that are having difficulties. There's plenty of beings in the world, ourselves included, that are suffering. So when this loving-kindness meets suffering, it turns into compassion. It turns into this wish for the suffering to end. This compassion is this recognizing the suffering and this desire for it to end.

And then when this loving-kindness goes out and it meets the opposite, somebody who's having great fortune and good things are happening, or maybe they just graduated or got a promotion or have a new baby or are getting married—you know, any of these things, there's so many things—then it turns into what we could call sympathetic joy. I'll use sympathetic joy. So this means, "I'm happy that you're happy." Just to see them happy makes you happy. It's just great to see their happiness. It's a little contagious; our joy grows. So when this Metta meets joy, it grows in us.

And then the fourth one is equanimity⁴. Equanimity shows up in a number of different ways in this tradition. In this setting, with the Brahma Viharas, with these heart practices, equanimity is this recognition of feeling connected and warmhearted with others and recognizing that we can't control their lives. We can't control what's going to happen to them or what they're going to do. So even though we might be able to see, "You'd have less suffering if you did X, Y, or Z," and there's often a temptation to want to tell them or somehow make them, control them to do X, Y, or Z, equanimity is this recognition that we don't control others. We care for them, we love them, and we wish the best for them, but we ourselves can be connected and warmhearted and not agitated when they are agitated, or wanting something that they can't have, or whatever for whatever reason. I'll talk a little bit more about equanimity in a moment.

Guided Meditation

First, I just want to say a few words about cultivating loving-kindness. There's two primary ways to do this. One, which I'll be leading us in this evening, is we bring to mind a lovable being. This is somebody you know and is part of your life, or it can even be imaginary. Some people use kittens, puppies, babies, this type of thing. So a lovable being, something that just causes the heart to smile in some kind of way, like there's a little bit of an uplift. So we connect with that, and if it's available to us, feel that in our bodies, feel this little bit of uplift and warm-heartedness. And then we will repeat phrases, just as a way to kind of help the mind keep on coming back to that loving feeling. Because if mindfulness practice tells us anything, it's how the mind likes to wander. So instead of coming back to the breath, we're coming back to a phrase that expresses goodwill. These phrases are not meant to create something out of thin air, necessarily, but it's just a reminder of our intention of connecting with this warm-heartedness.

A second way is to just visualize. There can be elaborate visualizations, I'm less familiar with that. Visualize something or someone, or imagine something or someone that brings this warmhearted feeling, and then tune into it and then just practice pervading it. The sense of it beaming out of one's heart out there. So it's less words and more of a feeling thing, of just pushing or sending Metta out.

So I'd like to guide us in a meditation here, but before I do, I'd like to say that it helps to be comfortable when you're doing Metta in particular. So you're welcome to get any extra cushions or to move or to do anything that you would like. If you think it would be helpful to be comfortable, it's hard to be warm-hearted when you're uncomfortable.

Okay, so taking a meditation posture. We'll begin with just connecting to the surface on which we're sitting, the chair or the cushion, feeling the pressure against the body. Feeling the feet on the ground.

To start us off, we'll do a little bit of mindfulness of breathing to help the mind and body settle. So bringing attention to the experience of breathing. Just tuning into what it feels like to have in-breaths and out-breaths. When the mind wanders, we just very simply, gently begin again with the sensations of breathing.

And now to begin the loving-kindness practice. Bring to mind a lovable being, someone with whom you have an uncomplicated relationship. For some people, this means it might be somebody they don't know very well, might be a teacher, coach, mentor. Could even be somebody you've never met, maybe an author. Or it can be somebody in your life. Or you can imagine a kitten or puppies or a baby. Bring this lovable being to mind.

Can you connect with the care that you have for this lovable being? The warmth, the love. For some people, that connection will be felt in the chest, in the heart. For some people, it'll be more just a general sense of warmth and relaxation. And for some people, it's not quite so obvious. It's all perfectly fine.

So staying connected to this lovable being, you can repeat these phrases in your mind after me:

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

Connecting with the lovable being, connecting to your intentions of sending this goodwill, well-wishes, this care, warmth, respect to this lovable being.

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

You're welcome to modify the phrases if those words feel clunky or awkward. Just a recommendation to keep it simple.

Connecting with the lovable being and maybe checking in with oneself. In the body, is there a sense of warmth or care or softness? And if so, allowing that to get as big as it would like. The key word is "allow." If you don't feel anything in particular, that's perfectly fine too.

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

And in the same way that we're extending this warm-heartedness and goodwill to the lovable being, let's extend it to ourselves. Of course we deserve loving-kindness, of course we do.

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I live with ease.

Wishing ourselves goodwill.

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be as healthy as I can given the circumstances I'm in. May I live with ease.

May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be as healthy as I can. May I live with ease.

And then to end this meditation, connecting again with the sitting surface. You're here. Feeling your feet on the ground. And when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Post-Meditation Discussion & Q&A

With that meditation, I started with us just connecting to here. Sometimes it can help the body and the mind to settle down. Often they're off doing whatever they're doing. And then I usually start with just a minute or two, maybe even three, of just breath meditation as a way to allow some settling.

Then bringing to mind a lovable being. Sometimes we can feel like, "Oh no, which lovable being should I choose?" and not be sure who it should be. But the recommendation is an uncomplicated relationship because often what happens is, somebody in our family, we love them, of course we love them, and then we're doing this practice, then we start to remember that thing that they did that time, and then it starts to get a little bit... it's less unconditional love and more something else coming in. So that's why often people choose individuals that they don't know so well. It's easier to just have this uncomplicated relationship with. Don't worry, there's definitely time to do Metta meditation, loving-kindness, for everybody in our family, but just to start here, I did with the lovable being because in theory, that's the easiest.

The encouragement is to really start where it's easy and stay where it's easy. A lot of times people want to jump and run and do all kinds of things with loving-kindness meditation, for example, work with one's anger. And you know, that would be great if it worked, but it doesn't. The human mind and heart can't just flip around to go from anger to love that fast in the way that we're wanting to cultivate here. So in that meditation, we start with the lovable being with the idea of priming the pump or lighting the kindling under the fire, so that there could be some warmth that's starting to be generated. For many people, that's all they do is just stay with the lovable being. There's something about just repeatedly directing the mind towards that well-wishing that just makes it easier and easier to come to that place in the heart and mind.

And it just starts showing up in one's life, often when you least expect it, when you're kind of relaxed and you make a mistake. For example, you might say, "Oh, it's okay, sweetheart," whereas before you would have chastised yourself. Or you might find yourself being okay with the person that's driving erratically or maybe even unsafely, just backing off and like, "Oh, I guess that person's having a bad day or something's going on with them," whereas before maybe there would have been anger. There's these subtle ways in which it starts to show up, and then it just starts to show up more and more. The more we practice, the more scenarios in which it arises.

In that meditation, I also ended doing a little bit for ourselves. It turns out that this often is not so easy, to have loving-kindness for ourselves. There's an inner critic that's often alive and well and is trying to tell us that we have to do better and that we're inadequate in some kind of awful way.

But I'd love to hear from all of you. How was it to do that guided meditation? And or do you have any questions about the teaching that I've done so far about loving-kindness?

Maybe I'll ask a specific question. How was it to go from the lovable being to yourself? Was it like, easy peasy, or was it like, wait, what? Did it feel awkward? [A person in the audience nods yes].

Was it easy to determine who the lovable being is going to be? Did you try out a few? Like, "Okay, this lovable being... nope. Okay, I'm going to try this one... nope, not going to do that. I'm going to try another one."

[Audience member]: "[I] chose my cat first but quickly decided against that."

For the purpose of the recording, I'll say that you chose your cat first but then decided to change your mind. Is your cat a mischief-maker sometimes?

[Audience member]: "Oh yeah, a feral cat."

Yes. And then did you have to go through a lot of beings or was the next one that you did...?

[Audience member]: "Picked my niece next."

Okay, okay.

[Audience member]: "Kind of bad that I picked my..."

No, no, no. So for the purpose of the recording, I'll say that she chose her niece after that. I think that's actually great. Nieces and nephews are perfect, and grandkids, these are the perfect ones to choose.

What about the phrases? Did they feel awkward and clunky, or did it feel like a support for tuning into and wanting to send well-wishes?

[Audience member]: "I think the phrases were fine for me, but I've also practiced this before. I was actually curious about the interplay between mindfulness and Metta. Is it sort of akin to like, mindfulness is for the brain whereas Metta is more for the heart? Is that sort of how they compliment each other?"

I think in the beginning, it's that way, and then they kind of... the difference starts to not be so clear, because the difference between mind and heart starts to not be so clear also. But I think that's one way we can consider it. But yeah, just to have warm-heartedness in our life is just such a great thing. It just makes everything better. And this is just a way to connect with that. But I find that probably most of us find that doing mindfulness meditation, which is just being aware of whatever is arising, won't necessarily bring warm-heartedness or cultivate that.

[Audience member]: "Yeah, I actually find the Metta like way easier than mindfulness. I don't know why. It's just like easier to concentrate on or something."

Yeah, and so I often, if people find Metta easier than mindfulness, I encourage them to do a lot of Metta. There's no reason not to. They will, when we really cultivate these, they end up going to a really similar, if not the same, place. It takes a little while before they get there, but I would always start where it's easy. Start where it feels good and it's fun. We're not always chasing our preferences, but if mindfulness feels like something that's hard to do, then we're just not going to do it. Whereas if Metta is easier, I would say stay with that. Thank you.

[Online question]: "Would someone who practices the Brahma Viharas ever get divorced?"

[Laughter] I don't know. I mean, how would I know that, right? So I'll say that Brahma Vihāra practice conditions our hearts so that warmth and this care just start to be a part of our life, and then your life unfolds differently if you have a lot of warmth and care. It is not magic, and the person that you are imagining is all of a sudden going to feel love and behave differently. It's something that we're cultivating for ourselves. So it's not going to necessarily make other people behave differently. That being said, when we behave differently, people we have relationships with often behave differently too. But it would be a misunderstanding to think that because we send loving-kindness to individuals, that those individuals are going to change. It's we who are going to change. And the loving-kindness just becomes easier and easier in more and more settings. So I guess that's my answer.

The Progression of Metta and The Role of Equanimity

Often there's a progression. Start where it's easy: the lovable being. Then sometimes it can be a good friend. It's still easy, but you know them well, and there's that time they were late or whatever, you know, it's not as clean necessarily, but you still love them, of course. And then you can do it for oneself, and then a neutral person. That is somebody you don't know. Ideally, it would be an individual that you recognize, maybe somebody that you see in the neighborhood, maybe it's the person that works at the grocery store that you see regularly or something like this. So an individual, but you don't know them, you've never spoken with them, you don't know their names. But just to have well-wishing for somebody that we don't know, this is such a powerful practice, because the majority of people we don't know, we don't have relationships with. This actually can be a little bit difficult to do. The mind tends to be a little bit dismissive, but the neutral person often can be the most powerful to spend time there. And then a difficult person, a person with whom we have tension in our relationship or we dislike or something like this.

The way that I often envision how it works, and this may be based on my experience too, is that there's like a fountain. Loving-kindness comes out the top, and then it goes to another pool, and then it overflows that pool, and then it goes down to another pool, and then it overflows and goes down to another. It's kind of important to fill up each pool as we're going. So to fill up with the lovable being to start there, and this takes time. There's absolutely no need to be in a hurry with this. You'll see a change with just doing that simple practice of loving-kindness for the lovable being. I know people have spent a year doing just that. So then maybe to a good friend or a family member, and then to oneself, and a neutral person, and then a difficult person. But each time you shift, spend time there. I know a number of people have done three-month retreats and they'll spend the first month, you know, 10 hours a day meditating just with the lovable being, and then it just starts to ooze out of them and then everything else just happens easier.

I'll also acknowledge that some meditation teachers will run through all those categories in one 30-minute or 45-minute sit. If you can do that, that's great, but if you can't, that's perfectly fine too. Just stay where it's easy and allow it to just fill up and overflow.

Don't be alarmed if things other than loving-kindness arise. There's something about when we touch into the heart, you know, the heart is filled with all kinds of things, including grief and anger and hurt. There's a way in which loving-kindness practice is a purification practice, that we're creating the conditions in which some of these things that we maybe aren't in touch with come up. And if you feel like there's a lot of anger or rage, then I would say switch to mindfulness practice. Just be with the anger and be with the rage, feel it in the body, and make space for it. You can just switch over to mindfulness practice if that arises.

Equanimity gets spoken about in a few different ways in this tradition. In this setting, I want to talk about it in terms of these heart practices, these warmth practices. Equanimity is this type of love, but it's a love of truth. It's a recognition of what is actually happening, the big picture, and seeing it within a balanced way. Here's what's so important about recognizing equanimity in this setting: it's definitely connected, just like Metta is. Sometimes people when they hear this word equanimity, they think aloofness. This is not aloofness. They think a disconnection. This is not disconnection. Or they think there's a passivity or apathy or something like that. No, this is connected, caring, and stable. Not being pushed around or getting agitated.

Sometimes why we need equanimity is because when we're doing loving-kindness, as I said earlier, for individuals that we could see are making decisions that in our view are not in their best interest, we really want to essentially control them. We don't think that in our minds, we're not using that language, but we want them to behave differently. And then an agitation arises, like, "Oh, dang it, if you would only do this," or "if you could only see that," or "if you would only stop doing this," or "you should start doing that." Equanimity is this recognition that everybody is in control of their own life. They make decisions for themselves. They might know how much we love them, but they are still making their own decisions, and sometimes we just need to remind ourselves that. It allows us to maybe get a little bit less entangled—connected but not tangled. Connected in such a way that because we love them, we respect that they can live their life in the way that they can. Of course, I'm talking about adults; children we need to guide. But there's a way in which equanimity can really support us through the disappointment that arises when we really, really want somebody to be happy and they're not happy.

Guided Meditation on Equanimity

So why don't we do just a short little meditation practice here with equanimity.

Again, feeling connected to our sitting surface. We're here. Just tuning into a few breaths here, feeling the body breathing.

And then we'll do a little bit of loving-kindness for the lovable being again. Just connecting with the lovable being.

May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.

May you be safe. Connecting with the lovable being. May you be happy. May you be as healthy as you can. May you live with ease.

Stay here for just a few more moments with the lovable being, connecting with any sense of warm-heartedness. Allow yourself to feel the care you have for this lovable being.

And now bring to mind somebody you have a relationship with, somebody you care about, and somebody who sometimes is a little irritating. Not the most difficult person in your life, somebody you care about but sometimes is a little annoying. Bring this person to mind. Connect with them, visualize them. And for this person, we'll do equanimity phrases.

I wish you happiness, and I cannot make your choices for you. I care about you, and I cannot keep you from suffering. Your happiness and unhappiness depend upon your actions, not upon my wishes for you. No matter how I might wish things to be otherwise, things are as they are.

I would recommend choosing one of those sentences and just using a single one. We'll go through them again. See which one of these resonates with you.

I wish you happiness, and I cannot make your choices for you. I care about you, and I cannot keep you from suffering. Your happiness and unhappiness depend upon your actions, not upon my wishes for you. No matter how I might wish things to be otherwise, things are as they are.

And then to end this meditation, feel your feet on the ground, the pressure of the seat against your body. And when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Conclusion

With that meditation, I started with being present here, a few breaths, and then some loving-kindness with the lovable being. I think that's a key aspect because we want these phrases to come from care, not from a, "You're responsible for yourself." We want it to be a way to express how much we care for others and respect others, while maintaining our own balance. Sometimes we're leaning so far in and trying to fix and make things happen. Sometimes it's really appropriate, I'm not saying not to help others, of course not. But it's the way that sometimes our sense of well-being gets compromised if we are insisting that things go a certain way without recognizing the autonomy of other people. I offered four phrases, it's a lot of words. I would just choose one phrase and just use that one repeatedly, or maybe there are two that make sense to you.

I'll also say that at IMC we have what we call "Happy Hour" from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. There's a guided meditation on loving-kindness, equanimity, all four of the Brahma Viharas. I taught this for a number of years, and now there's a collection of teachers who are doing this. It's a great practice. There have been people, it's quite something, that have been going there every day for years, and they're talking about how their lives are just different. It's a Zoom thing, you can get the link on the IMC calendar. So I recommend this if you're interested in exploring this.

Also, all the recordings for that Happy Hour get posted on Audio Dharma, so there are hundreds and hundreds of recordings. You'll be able to hear some of those. Also, Sharon Salzberg's book, Lovingkindness, if you don't know about it, it's kind of the classic here, and I think it's a wonderful book if you feel like you want to learn some more or dig some more into it.

I didn't manage the time so well this evening, so we're at the end of our time together, but I'd be happy to answer any questions or if anybody has some comments about equanimity or loving-kindness practice or Brahma Vihāra practice. You're welcome to come up here afterwards too.

Okay, so next week we'll do something a little bit different, but also to kind of build on our mindfulness practice. So thank you.