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Practice
Goodwill towards all beings, from the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta: how Goenka courses, IMS and other traditions teach mettā, and how it relates to vipassanā.
Mettā (मैत्री in Nepali) means loving-kindness or goodwill: wishing that others, and oneself, be well and happy. The glossary of Goenka's Discourse Summaries defines it as selfless love and goodwill, one of the qualities of a pure mind and one of the ten perfections (pāramī). It is one of the four sublime states (brahmavihāra), with compassion, joy at others' good fortune and equanimity. Mettā-bhāvanā is its systematic cultivation in meditation.
The classic source is a short poem in the Sutta Nipāta, the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta, which Bhikkhu Sujato translates as "The Discourse on Love". It begins with the qualities of someone who wants to realise peace: capable and upright, easy to speak to, gentle, content, living lightly. Then it turns to the wish itself, that all beings be happy and safe, extended to every kind of creature, seen or unseen, near or far, born or about to be born.
The central image is a mother's love:
Even as a mother would protect with her life / her child, her only child, / so too for all creatures / unfold a boundless heart.
The poem asks for this to be kept in mind "When standing, walking, sitting, or lying down while yet unweary", so mettā is not confined to formal sitting. Its last verse joins goodwill to insight: those who avoid harmful views, are virtuous and "accomplished in insight", and have dispelled desire for sensual pleasures, "never return to a womb again".
Acharya Buddharakkhita, in his study of mettā, retells the commentarial story behind the sutta: the Buddha taught it to monks disturbed in a forest dwelling, as both a theme for meditation and a formula for protection (paritta).
On courses in S. N. Goenka's tradition, mettā comes at the end. dhamma.org says that on the last full day participants learn the meditation of loving-kindness or goodwill towards all, "in which the purity developed during the course is shared with all beings".
In the Day Nine discourse Goenka describes mettā as one of the perfections: in the past one tried to feel love for others only at the conscious level of the mind, while old tensions continued underneath, and only when the mind is purified can one wish for the happiness of others from its depths. Each talk in the Discourse Summaries closes with the wish "May all beings be happy", a rendering of the traditional bhavatu sabba maṅgalaṃ. The course teaches its own mettā practice on Day 10; this page does not reproduce it. See the 10-day course, day by day.
The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts, was started by Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield and opened on 14 February 1976. It describes its teaching as guidance in "vipassana (insight) and metta (lovingkindness)". Spirit Rock notes that the Mahasi-derived style of practice in Western centres "also includes the use of repeated phrases to develop lovingkindness".
Salzberg, one of the IMS founders, is the author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (1995). In 2020 she published a guided practice of about 20 minutes on the Mindful website. In outline:
The meditation timer on this site can time a session with a bell.
Buddharakkhita sets out the traditional form, based on Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga. The phrases come from the Paṭisambhidāmagga: "May they be free from hostility, free from affliction, free from distress; may they live happily" (averā hontu, abyāpajjhā hontu, anīghā hontu, sukhī attānaṃ pariharantu).
Buddhaghosa's order of people is:
As mettā moves through this order, Buddharakkhita writes, the barriers between oneself, the revered, the dear, the neutral and the hostile break down, until everyone is regarded equally. Among family members, he advises thinking of a husband or wife last, because the intimacy between them brings in worldly love, and mettā should be the same towards all.
Mettā and vipassanā are different kinds of practice. Buddharakkhita writes that mettā reaches its consummation in meditative absorption (jhāna), and Mahasi Sayadaw lists it, with mindfulness of breathing, among the methods of calm (samatha) meditation that lead to absorption. Vipassanā aims instead at insight into impermanence, suffering and non-self. See samatha and vipassana.
The traditions combine them in different ways:
| Tradition | Place of mettā |
|---|---|
| Goenka | Taught on the last full day, after Anapana and vipassanā, to share what the course has developed |
| Insight Meditation | Taught alongside vipassanā at IMS, often with repeated phrases |
| Pa-Auk | One of the "Four Protective Meditations" that protect the meditator's practice |
| Thai Forest | Phrases of goodwill can be an object for walking meditation |
| Suan Mokkh | Chanting and loving-kindness meditation every day at 5 pm on retreat |
Buddharakkhita also writes that the ultimate purpose of mettā is said to be transcendental insight. Goenka's Day Nine discourse makes the link from the other side: goodwill felt from the depths of the mind follows purification.
Mettā is taught in person on Day 10 of every 10-day course at the Goenka centres in Nepal and elsewhere, on retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, and every day of the monthly retreats at the Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage in Thailand.