Puppy Metta

Trying to keep up a meditation practice in the midst of family life can be difficult.  Trying to practice compassion in the midst of teenagers can be difficult.  My primary practice is zazen, and it’s challenging enough to keep up a daily practice.  I’d like to sit sesshin, and occasionally feel like someone will suggest that my practice is a bit, “girlie-mon,¹” because I don’t go on retreats right now due to family commitments.  When a well-known teacher from any tradition comes around for a non-residential retreat or class,  I consider going, if I can.

So, when I saw that Sharon Salzburg, a well-known teacher of vipassana (insight) meditation was coming around on my birthday, I signed up.  In addition to sitting meditation, metta is often included as a  vipassana practice, and Ms. Salzburg is a well-known teacher of the metta-bhvana practice, having  written a book on the subject. I found it interesting to read that she had initially dismissed this practice, before she really gave it a chance  it and found it really did expand her capacity to love others², because I’ve had much of the same reaction.  Why would anyone have a negative reaction to a practice designed to help her be more loving, compassionate, and caring?  I think my reaction was twofold: first, the word, “lovingkindness,” somehow seemed cloyingly sweet to me, bringing to mind a new age group I was in once that seemed to be full of people with perpetually plastered smiles³  and second – and more importantly – I think I had lost my trust in my ability to truly love, having grown up with a parent who gave me constant messages like, “you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

Metta is a Pali word that refers to “loving-kindness,friendliness, benevolence, amity, friendship, good will, kindness, love, sympathy, and active interest in others⁴, and the first of the four immeasurables (the others being compassion (karuna), joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha).  At the retreat, we learned that we could cultivate metta by actively practicing these feelings and thoughts.  In the metta-bhvana practice, you focus your feelings of goodwill, love, kindness toward yourself or another being.  While you are doing this, you repeat statements like:

May I be safe and protected.

May I be peaceful and happy

May I be healthy and strong

May I be free from suffering

…or four similar phrases offering beneficent intentions toward the object of your meditation.  This can be done while sitting, during walking meditation, or throughout the day while going about other activities.

Sometimes in metta practice, it is suggested that phase one consists of practicing the meditation with oneself as the object.  Salzburg rightly pointed out that one’s self is, unfortunately, the most difficult person to practice compassion and lovingkindness toward ⁵.  It was suggested that we start with someone easy (I think she suggested the Dalai Lama or a child as some examples that people have used to start their practice).  Definitely don’t start with the more difficult people in your life.  Don’t start with your ex-husband, or that politician you dislike, or your alcoholic parent.  Save them for last, then learn to direct your practice toward all beings.

Part of our practice at the retreat was to go out into the community, walk mindfully, and practice metta on people we passed on the street.  “Remember, we’re in a neighborhood – look normal,” Salzburg told us.  I was reminded of something I read by a Buddhist author – I think it was Jack Kornfield – who said that his teenage son had referred to the slow-paced walking meditation done in vipassana practice as, “night of the living dead.”  In other words, we were to look alive, not to go out and stalk around the community like zombies ⁶.

Hmmm, then…who to make the beneficiary of my practice?  The older woman quietly tending to her garden, suddenly looking with suspicion at this sudden throng of happy people invading her quiet neighborhood?  The heavy metal dude who looked like he’d just been through hell the night before and was nursing a powerful hangover?  The young, beautiful, bohemian woman who chose to take the opportunity to sit easily in front of the Buddhist center, on the concrete, in full lotus position?  No, she was definitely not a target for my lovingkindness at that moment.

On our first run, I sent out random goodwill vibes to anyone I met on the street, or focused on someone I knew and  liked.  Then, on our second run I found it – the perfect object for my practice:  a tiny Boston Terrier puppy.  This would be easy!  Easier than practicing on my own two dogs who, though cute, tend to strain my compassion when they chew up my mini blinds.  We naturally have loving feelings towards small animals and babies, so here was the perfect object for my practice.

Unfortunately, I had competition.  Eyeballing my metta target was another retreat participant.  Our eyes met.

“The puppy will me mine, DukkhaGirl!” said my rival

“Not so fast kemo sabe,” I retorted, “This puppy deserves my enhanced long-acting metta powers!”

Of course, this was all in my mind.  No words were spoken, as this was a silent practice, but the exchanged glances said it all.

What were the possible outcomes of this?  I suppose we could have shared, and both followed the puppy, but the puppy was also attached to an owner, who might have been a bit unsettled by two silent women suddenly changing directions and following him ⁷.  In the end, I decided to let metta rule.  In the interest of the appearance of normalcy, lovingkindness, and putting others first, I bowed out, smiled at the woman, who smiled back, and proceeded the other direction, bulging a vein trying to force feelings of compassion and goodwill onto her.

Have I practiced metta since?  Now and then?  Do I think it helps?  Well, my advanced long-acting metta powers say it all!  Now, I can generate compassion towards kittens and bunnies as well as puppies.

Some metta resources: