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Abiding in Metta - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on November 09, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Abiding in Metta

Thank you for being here, and for those of you online, thank you for participating. I feel quite happy to sit here. I had a happy problem coming down here. I was walking—it was a nice sunny day, and I like walking from home, which is about a half-hour walk—and minding my own business, thinking about the talk I was going to give today. Then, I just felt all this Metta¹, first in my mind and then my heart, spreading out. I thought, "Well, I can't give that talk I was going to give." So that's my problem.

I think I'll talk a little bit about Metta, loving-kindness. It is usually translated in America as "loving-kindness." I am not sure what the best translation is. Lately, I have been preferring "goodwill." The word in the ancient language is Metta, and it is related to the word for friend, which is Mitta. Sometimes Metta is translated as friendliness—the tendency to be friendly and amiable—and I think that is really nice.

I didn't really care for this Metta thing once upon a time. I came from another Buddhist tradition before I was introduced to this practice, and there was just a direct pointing to the truth. None of this sentimental stuff. Love is kind of sentimental, and this cultivation of goodwill I was suspicious of. I thought it was artificial, a little bit forced, and a saccharine overlay on top of our experience—maybe a kind of bypass.

I was practicing in this Vipassana² insight tradition, and the teachers would sometimes do these guided meditations on loving-kindness. So, I did the reasonable thing: I just tuned them out.

Then one day, I was sitting there feeling quite good, quite nice, wonderful, and settled. It was a three-month retreat. They started to do this guided Metta meditation, and I said, "Oh, that's what they're talking about. Oh, this is nice." Since then, I've liked it.

What changed for me in that three-month retreat was two things. One was that I began to have a very friendly relationship with my mind. We were friends. My thinking and the way my mind operated became a very nice, supportive relationship, rather than being contentious, filled with shame, feeling angry, or all kinds of complicated things that went on with me before. Something shifted there, and I became friends with my own mind. Now we keep each other company pretty nicely.

In that friendliness, there was also a peace, a kind of ease where the mind and heart felt more open. I began to associate that with an experience of ease, of peace, but also of kindness, goodwill, love—something that was warmhearted or warm-minded. That was a treasure. I thought that was delightful to have that experience.

That has just grown over time. I think one of the great byproducts of doing this mindfulness practice is that the forces inside the mind that are the opposite of goodwill—such as ill will—actually hurt. They limit. Being limited, measured, and contained takes work. It is tiring. It is stressful. It feels constricted.

The heart doesn't want to be constricted. It doesn't want to be limited or held in check. As we do this practice, we become more and more sensitive to these rather unfortunate tendencies of the mind. It feels like, "Wait a minute." It is one thing to be caught in the middle of them and believe them. It is another thing to step a little bit outside of them and, with mindfulness, see the effect they have on us. We see how they limit and harm us.

We can start questioning: "Do I really have to go along with this? Do I really have to be complaining all the time? Do I have to always be feeling guilty or ashamed just for being alive? Always angry at something, or always wanting something more and more?" Mindfulness lets us step outside of being caught in these things, and we start seeing something very important. We start seeing there is actually an alternative.

Even if you have really good reasons to complain, there is no requirement to complain. You don't have to be locked into it. In fact, to be locked in is not such a good deal.

"But I have to complain! I'm justified!"

Yes. It is like someone who has locked themselves into their room and says, "You know, this is not right that I'm locked in my room." They spend their time having a campaign about how this is wrong. They go to their computer and write emails and editorials to the newspaper: "Being locked in the room is wrong and it shouldn't be this way." People start agreeing with you. "Yes, being locked in your room is horrible." Then you have a whole movement of people who feel it is wrong, and that those people who lock you in your room are really bad people.

Then you forget that you did it to yourself. You were the one who locked the door. And, oh—you have the key, too.

This way of getting locked into these mind states is one of the things we start seeing. It is not an easy thing to see at first, because it means you have to step out of the orbit of these states. Seeing it is not like seeing the best, most wondrous parts of yourself. Some people then feel even worse. "I'm complaining all the time, and now I can't stand that I'm complaining. I shouldn't be complaining." Or, "I'm feeling so much anger and now I'm angry at myself for being angry." Or, "I'm so needy and now I need someone to help me out of it."

They say that self-knowledge is seldom good news. But you have to take this step of very radical honesty. We really see ourselves and see what is going on. Without that kind of honesty, it is hard to step out of its orbit, step away, and learn how to gaze upon it with kind eyes. Learn how to see it: "Oh, look at that. That poor mind of mine." Someone has to befriend that mind. Why don't you?

See it: "Oh, this is what it is. This hurts. This is painful." This begins separating us, creating space and opening for something else to happen. Something can relax, because it is tense to hold everything locked in place. It is tense to be stressed. So, learn to relax and open, and see what is there.

One of the teachings of the Buddha is that things like love, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity are not something you have to do, accomplish, or pump yourself up for. Rather, they are a natural outcome. If there is no ill will, no hatred, no clinging, no envy, and no resentment—if those things we get locked into can relax—it is the nature of the mind and heart to have these positive social emotions.

That was my surprise with that three-month retreat. I didn't have to build up this friendliness. I didn't have to listen to the guided meditation. It wasn't an overlay on experience. It turns out it was the underlayment. It was the core that was there waiting to be expressed.

We find in these ancient teachings that if you have managed to release your mind enough from its locked room, if you have managed to clear the air of ill will and hatred, then there is a natural arising of this amazing experience of goodwill. It is not meant to be like a little back corner of the mind that says, "Yeah, way back there, it's a good idea to have some kindness." It becomes the disposition. It becomes the whole sense of where we are abiding. We are abiding in friendliness.

This totality is represented by calling these four—friendliness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity—the abode of the god Brahma³. Brahma was one of the highest gods in the ancient Indian pantheon. It is like saying there is a divine abiding, a heavenly abode that we can live in, like that god. In the ancient mythology, Brahma lived in this high heavenly realm because his karma was so good. His dwelling place, the atmosphere of his experience, was loving-kindness, compassion, and appreciative joy.

It can become that for us. It can be not just a little activity of the mind, but the atmosphere of the mind and heart. It is quite remarkable that we can do this. It doesn't have to be cultivated as much as it needs to be allowed.

How is it allowed? By not living in the opposites. The opposites are what cause harm to ourselves and the world around us. Ill will and hatred cause harm. Cruelty and violence cause harm. When the tendencies towards violence and causing harm go away, that makes room for compassion. When the movement towards ill will and hatred goes away, that makes room for this capacity for friendliness to be there.

I think it is a wonderfully leavening, inspiring state for our society. I read the news regularly about how much hatred there is, how much harsh and threatening speech there is. I read recently about a school district that received 3,000 pieces of hate mail from around the country for something that happened in the school—something ambiguous—including death threats. Imagine a school getting 3,000 pieces of hate mail. From the Buddhist point of view, the people doing that are hurting. They are in pain. You can't be anything but in pain to do it. And for the people who receive that, it is very difficult and frightening.

What about a society where we are friendly? We disagree in friendly ways.

Some years ago, I was doing a retreat outdoors. It was more like a workshop retreat. We invited someone to come and lead a grief process, grief rituals. The way it ended up being was very loud grief. You probably know that some cultures grieve very loudly. Everyone was encouraged to do that. So, we were in this oak grove of trees outdoors, and there was wailing and anger being expressed—all kinds of loud grieving.

I came back the next day. We were sitting there in the first morning session, and the owner of the property came down and joined us in the circle. He listened to what was going on for a while, calmly. Then he said, "I want to tell you a little bit about this property."

He told a little history of it and how his relationship to the natural world was a big part of why he was there to caretake it. It was in a beautifully forested area. He talked about his relationship with the ravens; he knew the ravens on the property. Apparently, he fed some of the baby ravens, and they knew each other. He was very interested in raven language—how they speak and communicate. He was friends with a bird specialist at the local university who was studying bird language. This was a real specialty of his.

He was very friendly and warm. He told us all this, and then he said, "And what were you guys doing yesterday? What were you doing that you were all making so much noise?"

People explained to him, and he listened in a friendly, nice way. Then, in a very kind way, he said, "Well, I want to tell you something. When you did that, that was really hard for the ravens. That frightened them. It disturbed and agitated them for several hours afterwards."

That's what he did. He didn't come down to yell at us or kick us off the property. He didn't come down to complain. He had something to talk to us about, and he came down in a friendly, kind, receptive way. He first asked about us—what was going on with you guys—instead of coming immediately with his judgment. Then he just said this simple thing: "You know, that was hard for the ravens."

We all got the message. We all felt like, "Uh oh." [Laughter]

He set up this whole context of discussion. We didn't have to be told anything else. We didn't have to be yelled at or punished. We got the message really deeply. More important than the message around the ravens, at least for me, was this inspiring example of how we can work with differences. How we can come together, meet, and talk, rather than using harsh, violent language that so often happens.

The movement in Buddhist practice is in this direction: a direction of living so that we see others as friends. To be friends with ourselves and friends with others. That process goes hand in hand, like it did for me in that three-month retreat. I didn't realize it at the time, but the very time when I was starting to become friends with my own mind was the same time that I was discovering how profound it was to have this friendly, open feeling toward the people around me.

I was walking down the street today from my home, and I was very happy walking down to be here. For a moment, I marveled that I was not on a device. I was not on my phone. I was just walking, and I wasn't home writing about anything. I was just happily walking. I thought, "Wow, this is sometimes a rare event for people in our society."

I just appreciated walking. I could feel as I did that my mind kind of opened. My mind felt more expansive, and in that expansiveness, it felt very friendly. It felt so nice to walk down the sidewalk in this very open, friendly state. I appreciated it a lot.

Then I thought about this talk I was going to give on a different topic. Instead of thinking about the talk, my mind went to all of you, the people coming. And then that friendliness just made me feel so happy. I think I started smiling. "Oh, how nice." Just a friendly feeling of goodwill, well-wishing, just happiness. Maybe goodwill is right next to it or right behind it, but just happy, delighted, appreciating people.

Sometimes I get the sense that there are people who walk around the world, and appreciating others is not their default. Their default is the opposite: to be afraid of people, to avoid people, to be critical of people, to find out what's wrong about people. The default is to overlook people and see them through the lens of "me, myself, and mine."

It is a remarkable thing to live with a friendly, appreciative mind where we are delighted by people. So that is what a life of Metta is. It is one of the fundamental principles or foundations for living an ethical life—which was going to be the topic today. [Laughter]

So, but you got something else. [Laughter]

Those are my thoughts. Loving-kindness, kindness, friendliness, goodwill, amiability, well-wishing, benevolence. Those are some of the words that people have used to translate the word Metta.

Q&A

Question: I found that my thoughts are from conditioning, of course, and usually underlying those thoughts is a feeling. I have found that a lot of the thoughts are trying to protect me. But it is hard sometimes to figure out what feeling is underlying the thought. So how do you make friends with your mind?

Gil: Nice. I love the question. It is quite significant that you saw that a lot of these difficult thoughts are your attempt to protect yourself. Protecting oneself is a wonderful thing, to have that instinct. The question is not so much to stop doing that, but maybe learn more appropriate, healthy ways to protect yourself that feel good.

Question: Yeah. Sometimes the protecting myself is not skillful.

Gil: In and of itself, the strategies might not be skillful, but the fact that you have that desire in you might actually be quite a wonderful thing. Not to have that could be really dangerous, like people who are born without pain nerves. They usually don't live very long because pain actually protects us from harming ourselves. You have a survival instinct, and that's good to have, but maybe it is not being used well. Does that give you something to do? Find a better way to protect.

Question: Thank you, Gil, for your talk. I don't know if my question is the same. It feels to me virtuous in a way to be mean to myself and have ill will towards myself. How do I deal with that?

Gil: Well, I would suggest doing what I'm doing right now: get really curious. How does that work? Virtue makes me smile. So, what is it about virtue? Is it a misunderstanding of what is virtuous? Or is there some deeper virtue going on there that is actually quite healthy, but maybe it has gotten a little bit wonky—that being mean to yourself is somehow a good thing?

I don't know you, of course, but there are people who have a religious background where somehow it is considered virtuous to deny oneself, to be critical of oneself. That is quite a heavy burden to carry around. So it might be useful to get curious and see, where does this come from? What is going on for you? At the root of it, maybe like with the previous question, there is something really good in you.

Question: Thank you, Gil. There was quite a lot packed into the talk you gave us. Before coming to this tradition, I belonged to a different spiritual tradition based out of India. There was a theoretical understanding of being compassionate, but there is this concept of a guru, and everything is focused outward towards this guru. Coming here, I am pleasantly surprised by how it seems more natural in our everyday life. I really liked what you said about letting go of the clinging, and then the natural thing underneath is compassion.

But something else also struck me about the story you related about the ravens. Sometimes being around animals and building a bond with them is like a cheat code, because they are not conditioned like our society with hating so much. I wonder, if we spend more time in the company of these creatures and trying to build friendship with them, can we find these natural states more easily?

Gil: I know a Buddhist monk who loves doing this Metta meditation. In order to get it going for him—he lived in Sri Lanka for a long time—he brings to mind these very cute, small monkeys. All he has to do is bring to mind these monkeys, and then his loving-kindness is there, and he is off and running with it. So if animals are what does it for you, please.