How do we meet suffering—our own and the world’s—without being overwhelmed? Compassion invites us to turn toward pain with an open heart and respond, while equanimity offers balance and perspective. The two work together, allowing us to engage wholeheartedly, without attachment to outcomes, responding with wisdom and care in the face of uncertainty, loss, and change.
This talk introduces formal instructions for metta practice in the traditional form of phrases and categories. After sharing about the spirit and principles behind the practice, we engage in a guided meditation first receiving metta from a benefactor, then offering metta to a benefactor, and finally offering metta to oneself.
This talk explores core questions of lovingkindness practice: What is "metta"? What is its relevance in our lives and our world? How does it function to transform our hearts and world? And how do we strengthen metta?
When we begin to see the arising and passing of thought as not me, not my, and not mine, there is room loosen the grip of grasping and aversion. We can begin to see thought truly as one of the six sense doors.
