Ordinary life puts Metta to the test, and it’s the most useful place to use it. “Screw you!” I might yell at someone who shouts random gibberish at me from a car, spoiling my mood and making me drop my fries. I could’ve yelled, “Have a nice day!” instead and giggled at how silly the whole thing was.
By Johnathon Lee
Metta is the right way to respond to the outrageous situation that we’re in.
We’re little dots on a little dot that’s zooming around a little ball of gas, circling a black hole that’s part of huge interstellar filaments composing a practically infinite universe. Out of over 16 billion years of existence, we get to live five to ten decades as one of seven billion other people. Each one is having their own rich experience of their place in spacetime.
Among this enormity, we form bonds with others and create meanings. Then those bonds are stretched and severed. Space is expanding; everything drifts apart. We all suffer as we each stretch our reaches across the gulf between “was” “is” and “should be.”
Knowing this, the situation that we’re all in, the most reasonable thing to do is be kind to each other (and ourselves). Wishing everyone well, hoping that they can make their ways to happiness. Loving-kindness is a virtue of a sound mind, and soundness is happiness.
Minds emerge from interactions.
The type of conditions behind those interactions creates our minds, like how mass, light, eyes, and brain can create the visual feast we call a “red delicious.”
Metta is a condition for the mind. Without it, the mind can be dark. With it, it’s enlightened.
It’s important, in my experience, to not take this to an extreme. Boundless metta would basically make you a monk. If that’s what you want to do, then go for it. I like scrolling through videos too much.
Ordinary life puts Metta to the test, and it’s the most useful place to use it. “Screw you!” I might yell at someone who shouts random gibberish at me from a car, spoiling my mood and making me drop my fries. I could’ve yelled, “Have a nice day!” instead and giggled at how silly the whole thing was.
Most of us avoid confronting the impersonal nature of nature. So, we compete with each other and hate each other (and ourselves). Facing it, the main tragedy in life is that we view life as a tragedy. That we all do this means that we’re all worthy of kindness.
Whenever I look into a stranger’s eyes, I’m seeing someone who’s fighting for meaning.
Someone who might even risk their life to feel alive; who will reach beyond their limits into the dark fire of the night sky. Then, burning to death and being born anew over and over again in a single life.
We’re all like this, and we’re all in it together. That we can cultivate metta is proof that there’s beauty in it too, and it’s the true beauty of knowing who, what and where we are—the precious wonder of a sound mind moving with the stars.
There’s no archetype for who you should be in light of this.
Don’t try to be a Buddha or superhuman—that’s the opposite of what natural Buddhism is about. You’re human, we all are, and that’s all. So, just let yourself be a human on a rock floating in infinity, counting blades of grass and cherishing the ones we love.
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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