Dhamma Talks - Loving Kindness :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

When, at first, I was asked to talk about loving kindness it crossed my mind to just sit here and to say and do nothing. Because, to me loving kindness doesn’t work when I talk about it or write about it, it works, though, when it’s done and used. The Pali word for loving kindness is Metta, a much more apt word, I think. For in English we have two words and those two words can be separated. Metta, one word says it all completely.

I came to this conclusion when I realized the way we misused the word, Love. We can easily say we love so many things and situations and then we have lost the true, pure meaning of the word.

We don’t have to look or search out ways to show Metta, because situations arise all the time, all around us in our everyday lives. Have you ever seen an old bent person dragging a shopping trolley to the shops, their heads bent and their face frowning. Have you ever tried just smiling and saying hello? It works and you can see a face light up before your eyes. That’s Metta and it’s easy to do.

In short, Metta means a strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others. It is an attitude of love and friendliness, renouncing bitterness, resentment and animosity of every kind. True Metta is devoid of self interest. It is a warm hearted feeling of fellowship. By actively putting it into practice we can gain positive virtues and outgrow negative traits.

It has to be said that some people appear to have a natural, easy attitude; it seems to be part of their personality to be friendly to all they meet. Maybe they have always been like that, maybe they haven’t. Others, for some reason or another, don’t behave kindly. But have you ever noticed that unkind people don’t look too happy themselves? So there must be something powerful in being loving-kind because not only will it make others happy, but us, also.

The Buddha taught us the Metta Sutta and it is beautiful, but he didn’t want us to learn and recite it and not to know and understand its meaning. He asked us to follow the instructions with our hearts. The Buddha also said “beautiful words or thoughts which are not accompanied by corresponding acts are like a bright flower that bears no fruit. It would not produce any affect” So it must be action, not speculation, it is practice, not theory which really counts.

Sometimes people who are new to Buddhism could easily be mistaken by believing that the teachings encourage us to think only of ourselves, and it is true, we do have to work on ourselves. And at first, for ourselves. Who else could we work on? We have to train ourselves first, because if we cannot find Metta within, we certainly won’t be able to find it outside of ourselves. When we can find it within it is then we can share it with others. So if we treat the world kindly, then the world will treat us kindly. We have to start this ball rolling ourselves. So by all means, we can read about Metta and even talk about it, though most importantly we should use it and be it. We should use it so much that we couldn’t avoid it, even if we tried.