A talk about Metta

[Aloka]

Ajahn Sumedho recently gave the following talk about Metta at Amaravati Monastery UK.

I'm also posting a link to the beautiful Metta Sutta for anyone who hasn't read it.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ati/...1.08.amar.html

[Thinker]

Thank you for posting Aloka, we are so fortunate that Ajahn Sumedho is present and giving valuable talks.

[philg]

I like the discussion around how language makes it difficult to talk about things which there is no language for. Metta as loving kindness I practiced for many years, but his idea of acceptance of things behind it brings a new way in to talking about it. His description of accepting things as they are as a key aspect of metta is really interesting particularly where he contrasts 'knowing' and 'knowing about', and where he talks about awareness as an impersonal thing.

His advice on learning to trust conscious awareness in a kind of 'just sitting' seems to be a good place to start to understand this in practical terms, as is his description about how he personally used his own koan on what may be permanent when Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent, to come to an 'empty state' as a refuge. He advises to trust in an awareness which is always 'here and now' in order to gain the freedom which comes with receiving life as you experience it.