Dhamma Talks - Metta-Loving Kindness :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Hatred is regarded as a serious disease which lies hidden in every creature. It is charming and ugly, as every creature is persuaded by it; this is including us, although we know that hatred is bad and its consequence are bitter. But we are sometimes fascinated by it. There is a group of people who don’t surrender to it, so they are trying to find the medicine to cure it. Metta is one of the solutions to cure hatred, which Buddha revealed to the world. If we spread metta all over the world, the world will be peaceful. About this, there is a story told by Ajahn Brahmavamso as follows;

There was an ogre who was short-tempered. One day he invaded the palace and sat on the king’s seat. All the king’s men told him to get off the king’s seat, threatening him. When the ogre was told to get off the seat of the king, he was so angry that his body went bigger and bigger. When the king’s men saw that, they were very scared and they reported it to the king. The king came to the throne hall and saw the scary monster. The king spoke to the ogre, with loving kindness and compassionate words, “Ogre, please forgive me, I am so sorry to be late to welcome you. I was busy preparing some good food for you, please come down to eat and drink”. With the warm welcome of the king, the ogre’s body shrank, and when he heard the caring words of the king, he shrank to the same size as a human being. His frightening actions turned to kindness. Now he obeyed the king in whatever the king said to him. This was because of the metta of the king, he wouldn’t have been kind if the king hadn’t used loving kindness and compassion to him.

We sometimes look like an angry ogre when we are angry. If we don’t use metta to calm down our anger, we will cause a lot of trouble to ourselves and others. We can be as ugly as the angry ogre, when we are angry. If we don’t believe this, when we are moody, we can have a look at ourselves in the mirror. We will see our angry ogre face in the mirror. We cannot overcome it with anger, but we can with loving kindness and compassion. Anger is like fuel for the fire; it will make us more furious. Some diseases in our body are caused by our bad temper. Let’s say the mind is like a king, the body is like a kingdom or palace, and an ogre is like the bad temper which always finds a way to conquer the kingdom. The king must be wise enough to protect the kingdom or deal with the ogre. Otherwise he will lose his kingdom to the ogre. So the king must have a weapon to get rid of the ogre, and the best weapon is metta, loving kindness, because it will not cause any trouble afterwards, which means it does not cause any vengeful feeling towards the winner. So metta is regarded as the best medicine to cure anger.