Cultivating emotions

The idea of cultivating emotions in meditation might strike some of us as being a bit odd: after all, don’t emotions “just happen”? It often seems like they well up inside of ourselves unbidden, and come and go like the weather.

A lot of the language we use to talk about emotions suggests a lack of control. For example, we “fall” in love, or we are “overcome” with anger, or we feel “depressed” (who’s doing the depressing), or we feel “overburdened” with stress, or people “make” us annoyed.

From a Buddhist point of view it is not the case that emotions “just happen”. Emotions are habits, and are actively created. It seems like they have a life of their own because we aren’t conscious of exactly how we create them. If we can bring more awareness into our emotional life then we can cultivate the emotions we want to experience (those that make us and others happy), and discourage the arising of those we don’t want (those that make us unhappy and generate conflict with others).

Buddhist meditation encourages us to take responsibility for our emotional states.

We cultivate emotions all the time. An example of how we unconsciously generate emotions is this: imagine you’re with a group of people, and you get to talking about all the things that are wrong with the world — hatred, war, intolerance, child-abuse, pollution etc. As the conversation goes on, and we get more and more involved, what happens? The chances are that we get angry, or depressed, or feel self-righteous. By focusing on things that anger or depress you (without creatively trying to see what you can actually do about these things), you cultivate these emotions.

Imagine if you did that with things that encouraged a sense of love and well-being? That’s what the Metta Bhavana practice is about. It’s a meditation practice in which we consciously set up the conditions for the arising of positive emotion.

What metta isn’t

There are many myths and misunderstandings about metta, or lovingkindness.

Simply because the word metta is not found in English — and because there isn’t an exact equivalent — it’s possible to think that the emotion itself is something strange and unusual.

It’s possible for us to confuse metta with other emotions.

It’s also possible for us to think that since metta is part of a spiritual path it must be something very exalted and distant, and not something that we’ve ever experienced.

Here are some explanations of what metta is not:

• Metta isn’t the same thing as feeling good, although when we feel metta we do feel more complete, and usually feel more joyful and happy. But it’s possible to feel good and for that not to be metta. We can feel good, but be rather selfish and inconsiderate, for example. Metta has a quality of caring about others.
• Metta isn’t self-sacrifice. A metta-full individual is not someone who always puts others before themselves. Metta has a quality of appreciation, and we need to learn to appreciate ourselves as well as others.
• Metta isn’t something unknown. We all experience Metta. Every time you feel pleasure in seeing someone do well, or are patient with someone who’s a bit difficult, or are considerate and ask someone what they think, you’re experiencing Metta.
• Metta isn’t denying your experience. To practice Metta doesn’t mean “being nice” in a false way. It means that even if you don’t like someone, you can still have their welfare at heart.
• Metta isn’t all or nothing. Metta exists in degrees, and can be expressed in such simple ways as simple as politeness and courtesy.

What metta is

• Metta is an attitude of recognizing that all sentient beings (that is, all beings that are capable of feeling), can feel good or feel bad, and that all, given the choice, will choose the former over the latter.
• Metta is a recognition of the most basic solidarity that we have with others, this sharing of a common aspiration to find fulfillment and escape suffering.
• Metta is empathy. It’s the willingness to see the world from another’s point of view: to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.
• Metta is the desire that all sentient beings be well, or at least the ones we’re currently thinking about or in contact with. It’s wishing others well.
• Metta is friendliness, consideration, kindness, generosity.
• Metta is an attitude rather than just a feeling. It’s an attitude of friendliness.
• Metta is the basis for compassion. When our Metta meets another’s suffering, then our Metta transforms into compassion.
• Metta is the basis for shared joy. When our Metta meets with another’s happiness or good fortune, then it transmutes into an empathetic joyfulness.
• Metta is boundless. We can feel Metta for any sentient being, regardless of gender, race, or nationality.
• Metta is the most fulfilling emotional state that we can know. It’s the fulfillment of the emotional development of every being.
• It’s our inherent potential. To wish another well is to wish that they be in a state of experiencing Metta.
• Metta is the answer to almost every problem the world faces today. Money won’t do it. Technology won’t do it. Metta will.

Link: http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction/outline