Metta Practice as Metapractice

There is only one "I" that looks through all the eyes in the world. If you understand that saying, you understand what I mean by metta.

According to Narada Maha Thera: 

Metta embraces all beings without exception. The culmination of Metta is the identification of oneself with all beings....Metta is the sincere wish for the good and welfare of all. It discards illwill. --Narada, A Manual of Abhidhamma (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Buddhist Missionary Society, Fourth Revised Edition, 1979), 114.

When we identify with some other being, we in some way become the same as that other being. In metta, we become the same in some way with all beings. When we see someone in tears, for example, we see these tears as our own. If they are tears of joy, we feel the joy as being our own. If they are tears of sorrow, we feel the sorrow as being our own.

I led a meditation group called Blue Iris Sangha that met on Monday nights for 17 years in New Orleans. The group closed each meditation session with a period of metta practice in which we shared our concerns for the welfare of others. Participants were invited to mention anyone -- a relative, a friend, a neighbor, a pet, a stray dog or cat, a co-worker -- any one about whom they were concerned in some way. 

We often remembered those who were sick or in grief. But sometimes we also remembered those experiencing something fresh, something beautiful, something wonderful (a new job, a new baby, a new insight). In any case, we "held them in the light of loving awareness" as some people liked to put it. It became our way of prayer. 

And for some of us, expanding our awareness of the needs and concerns of those around us became a way of life. I don't think any of us claimed to live up to this ideal all the time or even most of the time. But some of us did recognize that when we were in this state of awareness that reached out to include the needs and interests of those around us -- and only then -- were we really and truly alive in the fullest sense of that word.  In this way, metta practice became metapractice.

Metapractice is what is beyond practice. If you are practicing playing the piano, metapractice is the recital. If you are practicing to run a marathon, the marathon is metapractice. But notice that the two aren't really different with respect to what we are doing, Practice is just a structured period in which we develop skills and habits we need for the metapractice -- the main event. When we practice running a race we do that by running. When we practice for a piano recital, we do that by playing the piano. And when we do metta practice, we do this by practicing metta.

Metta practice, however, is a little different from these other types of practice I've compared it to. With metta practice, the main event begins the moment your period of practice ends -- the moment you get up from your chair or cushion -- and it lasts until you sit down again for another session of practice.

At the end of each period of metta practice in Blue Iris Sangha, we all recited this excerpt together from the Metta Sutta, which is one of the most ancient of Buddhist scriptures and one of the greatest prayers ever prayed:

May all beings be happy and safe

and may their hearts be filled with joy.

May all beings live in security and peace --

whether weak or strong,

large or small,

near or far away,

visible or invisible,

already born or yet to be born --

may all of them dwell in perfect tranquility.