Spreading a simple piece of advice that has helped me with Metta

[anthbrown84]

Hello DW

I am just here to share a piece of advice i received from a Samanera lately. i wont mention his name because it wasnt an official piece of advice, just a friendly one when discussing The Dhamma.

I said i had trouble cultivating the energy required for metta. He asked me a simple question "are you sending metta or receiving metta?"

This simple energy shift has really opened up my receptiveness to the energy. Yes, i am a beginner with all this, and my progress isnt very deep at all, but its opened up a door that i will hopefully reap the rewards of.

I am now, when sitting there saying "may i be well" thinking of this as a chance to welcome it in, receive it... instead of putting energy into sending it to myself.

It is very subtle but quite a substantial change in the preliminary stage of metta practise.

I just thought i would share it and see if anyone else here has anything they would like to add to this idea of receiving metta?

Anthony

[JohnK]

Regarding receptive: I have on occasion in the beginning of metta practice visualized someone close to me (someone I might believe!) looking at me and saying the metta phrases for me. I suspect I was instructed that this could be helpful, but I can't recall for sure.

(Maybe another angle on less "sending" is allowing it to overflow.)
Thanks for the post.

[dhammarelax]

Hello DW

I am just here to share a piece of advice i received from a Samanera lately. i wont mention his name because it wasnt an official piece of advice, just a friendly one when discussing The Dhamma.

I said i had trouble cultivating the energy required for metta. He asked me a simple question "are you sending metta or receiving metta?"

This simple energy shift has really opened up my receptiveness to the energy. Yes, i am a beginner with all this, and my progress isnt very deep at all, but its opened up a door that i will hopefully reap the rewards of.

I am now, when sitting there saying "may i be well" thinking of this as a chance to welcome it in, receive it... instead of putting energy into sending it to myself.

It is very subtle but quite a substantial change in the preliminary stage of metta practise.

I just thought i would share it and see if anyone else here has anything they would like to add to this idea of receiving metta?

Anthony

Metta can be used as a main practice as per SN 46.54.

[Buddha Vacana]

I am now, when sitting there saying "may i be well" thinking of this as a chance to welcome it in, receive it... instead of putting energy into sending it to myself.

Valuable piece of advice indeed

[Caodemarte]

I am now, when sitting there saying "may i be well" thinking of this as a chance to welcome it in, receive it... instead of putting energy into sending it to myself.

Valuable piece of advice indeed

Very nice!

[samseva]

You can't love others if you don't love yourself. The Buddha says that the person who is dearest in the world is yourself. Love yourself and take care of yourself.

[Laurens]

Another thing that has helped me direct metta toward myself, or perhaps more accurately to let go of self hatred is to ask myself the following:

Would I be this hard on my parents/partner/close friend?

We tend to be overly hard on oursleves over tiny insignificant things. Say you were to break a precept for example. Often we have a tendency to say to ourselves "What an idiot! Why did I let myself do that!" And carry around regret and self loathing over it.

But really we ought to imagine what we would say if a very close friend if they came to us and said "I broke a precept today and I feel bad about it". Would you turn around and shout at them for being a fool? No you would talk calmly to them and reassure them that we all make mistakes and have lapses from time to time. Then you would encourage them to pick themselves up, let go of their regret and move forward.

You should treat yourself how you would treat your close friend.