Meta Metta

(Dogs and cats will be friends! Mass hysteria!)

Metta is a semantic Tardis.

Each time I sit down and attempt to write about it, I begin practicing it, and it does its work of transforming me into a wordless, beautific state.

(Deep Creek, April 2017)

The practice of Metta begins by probing my own heart for its receptivity for Love, and encountering my Shadow--the split off portions of myself that I deny and reject, and potentially project onto others. This first stage of meditation is for me the most challenging bringing up as it does subconscious beliefs about deserving and blame.

Here is an essay by Pema Chodron on Tonglen, the practice of transforming suffering using compassion. https://www.lionsroar.com/transforming-the-heart-of-suffering/
Already, it is clear that the simple 5 letter word, "Metta", contains in its very first step an entire Buddhist practice.

Once I achieve that sense that I can be loved and in fact, am bathed in the golden light of universal compassion along with all of existence, I can move on and exhale that radiance outward, and address all beings from a place of love.

(Like a glorious sunset over a typically dry lake somewhere in the Mojave. Dec. 2016)

Kindness naturally follows. Love is not just a feeling, it is an action. I contemplate acts of kindness I have received, how they affected me and my own disposition to behave kindly.

Again, the Tardis of Metta reveals how much bigger it is on the inside. Life is too short for all the kindnesses I can think of performing. Once, my daughter told me, "You could have been nicer." She was right, and her statement did cause me to be more conscientious. There is always room for improvement: for policing my own tone, for overcoming laziness and egotism, I can always be nicer.

Now that Loving Kindness fills my heart, Metta asks me to contemplate Peace. I like to say, "I am the epicenter of Peace, and so are you." With my own heart at Peace with its warring factions, I can enter any situation and bring Peace to it. And when I find myself instead in an oppositional frame, I can scan it for inherent commonalities, for the Peace intrinsic to every interaction. I find that an attitude of Curiosity gives me a safe place to be Peaceful inside, and at the same time, allows the person to explain where they are coming from. I get to walk a mile in a lot of other people's shoes, a practice I find very interesting and satisfying. Isn't that what literature is for?

(New best friends meet for the first time, Nov. 2016)

Now, Joy becomes easy. I certainly enjoy reading the novels of everyone's lives. My own life becomes suffused with a cosmic bliss. I feel deeply embodied, my senses thirsty to take in the Joy of nature, of simple beauty, of connection with my loved ones. Joy is contagious. It is very hard to remain sullen when a joyous person is nearby exclaiming how beautiful everything is!

Thus I complete the first turn of the Sacred Spiral. But Metta doesn't stop with me and my internal Loving Kindness Peace and Joy.

The next dimensional expansion calls me to contemplate all four principles activating in the life of a loved one. What if my beloved dwells in this beautific state? I feel into it remotely, but the connection I establish causes me intense affection and desire to do acts of kindness very specifically tailored to bringing them joy.

This Tardis of Compassion isn't finished yet. The third circle of the Sacred Spiral is to perform Metta practice on someone I find difficult. I contemplate their foreign heart opening wide to loving kindness, for their acts to spring from this infinite well of peace and joy. I imagine our next interaction colored by this, and how I can tailor kindness even with a person I sorely disagree with. Again, Curiousity is required. Their life becomes a fascinating biography. Their wellbeing becomes a cherished goal.

(If this cactus can find nourishment in solid rock, what's my excuse for anything???)

Still, Metta expands outward. The Spiral continues, as I apply Compassion to my whole community. My group of friends and my town. What if San Bernardino became drenched in loving kindness, peace, and joy? I get very excited by this vision of my traumatized city. New options occur to me.

(I planted this Red Guava in the front yard so that ultimately, it will give fruit to the whole neighborhood.)

Don't think Metta stops there. The Spiral widens to include my entire country, wracked by political division and inequality. As I apply Metta like a healing balm, the possibilities of solutions and unity wells up within me.

No stone is left unturned in this Practice, for next I apply it to groups I think of as dangerous enemies. For we are all a microcosm, and evil that exists outside of my heart is of the same substance as my own disowned Shadow. What if the satanic elite were to discover the Truth of universal compassion? I contemplate a world transformed.

(Like water brings life to the desert, Feb. 2016, photo by my husband.)

I apply Metta to the entire world, and I see...All Things Are Sacred.

In Metta,
Love,Cat