as of time of posting, metta may has a whopping 47 people signed up to participate!!
i’m wildly excited (and a little nervous!) to have so many people involved. the more people that are gathered for a thing, the more real it becomes, the more energy it has, the greater its effects will be to ripple out into the world.
and the effects of a community coming together to help each other practice kindness, compassion, friendliness, and love for a whole month, i feel confident, will be tremendously positive!
what is metta may again?
metta may is a class i am teaching from may 3-31. each week, we’ll have a 90 minute group call to practice meditation that opens our hearts, to connect with each other, and to have Q&A time to refine our practice and address difficulties.
we’ll cover things like learning to identify the feeling (or stance, or frequency, or energy, or sense) of metta in our hearts, minds, and bodies, and learning to deepen and absorb in that feeling, and spreading it out to more and more people and living beings in our lives and around the world. we’ll explore lots of ways to cultivate metta directed towards ourselves. we’ll cultivate compassion, forgiveness, and equanimity. we’ll explore different techniques like using phrases, using imagery, and cultivating the felt sense of metta in the body.
and perhaps even more substantially, we’ll be supporting each other to practice metta every day. having 40+ other people on our team for an intention like this is like a super power! we’ll connect about our daily practice through a group chat, and share our metta wins and experiments.
i’ll also be meeting with each participant once for an hour long call, to give personal attention to their metta practice.
gee golly where can i sign up!
right here partner - tinyurl.com/mettamay26. the more the merrier!!
metta may is offered on a dāna basis, which is to say on a system of generosity. if you wish to participate and are able and willing to donate money, that form of reciprocity is deeply appreciated and valuable for my mission. at the same time, one’s willingness to practice metta together is all that is required to sign up, and those who can’t or don’t wish to donate money are still very much welcome!
where are these memes and accompanying meme-commentary i was promised by the subtitle of this substack post???
comin right up! (i made all these to dribble out slowly on twitter to help spread the word - it was a really fun little project :))
metta is one of the simplest and most direct meditation techniques. in essence, i simply orient to my heart and immerse myself in its true nature. ill will and delusion wither, peace and joy often arise, and i see the world more clearly
i think of ill will like a very detrimental shortcut our minds take up as a habit. if someone is being unskillful, it can be easier to believe they deserve retribution than to find grief and compassion, all while holding our needed boundaries
the problems with this are:
1) it makes it easier for us to cause unnecessary harm to ourselves and others
2) the mind is not typesafe, and if we think other beings are deserving of pain, we will think parts of ourselves are as well
3) the very act of ill will is a defection against our deepest authenticity, and is itself painful
so ill will is like a short cut to protect ourselves that ends up harming us (and others) a lot more in the long run
this is one of the reasons metta practice, the practice of cultivating good will, is so important and so freeing!
this gets complicated when we consider people who are horribly abusive or exercising power obscenely, but it’s still possible, and skillful.
wishing for the wellbeing of a harmful person isn’t wishing for them to “get away with it” or excusing their actions. it’s recognizing that their true wellbeing would be synonymous with their healing, their being lifted out of ignorance, and their own grieving and reckoning with their actions
we can also be compassionate for the welfare of others even simultaneously with defending ourselves, even simultaneously with using force, if needed
we need not force ourselves into this view at our own detriment. we are fragile beings, and we learned and inherited patterns of ill will very early in our lives, to protect ourselves.
but, when it’s safe enough, when there is enough resource, i find that when i am able to hold this view skillfully, i suffer less, and my actions are more aligned with the wellbeing of all living things.
this is the type of metta practice known as metta for “the enemy.” we start by learning to recognize the quality of metta for ourselves, for loved ones, etc. but in time, we can practice expanding the circle.
sometimes i’m like
>well what’s this suffering about?
>don’t i *deserve* to be suffering?
>if i give myself compassion then wont that just cause *other* problems??
so quan yin (seen here as patrick star) helps me, because her algo is just
>suffering?
>ok, compassion
referencing quan yin (in her, uh, more usual form) can be such a relief, because it allows me to see that any contraction in my system, no matter the cause, is worthy of being held with love. otoh if i judge my suffering as “unworthy,” it only creates more tension, and invites the confusion to fester.
metta and compassion are closely related - practicing with a focus on one helps the other come online as well.
something useful i’ve found in my own metta practice is that **even just looking for metta IS practicing metta**
metta practice can be “successful” even if the whole sit, we get no clear sense or feeling of metta in the body. the intention to cultivate metta, the openness for it to enter, the feeling around in the dark for it, are all part of the process.
metta does eventually have a noticeable somatic component, but i would argue that the seed of metta does not require this - it’s simply the intention of goodwill. it’s the stance of the heart.
and even if i’m meditating and feeling grumpy and judgemental and contracted etc etc -- if the INTENTION is alive to be in a stance of the heart that relates to all beings with goodwill, in some sense, the stance is already there (if perhaps embryonic).
of course it’s lovely when there’s a practice session with a metric fuckton of metta shining like the sun. learning to open to this without grasping is marvelous!
but how valuable also is it to find myself in some strange cold wilderness of the psyche, and learn to navigate from there to somewhere with at least a warm hearth.
ok, that’s all for now!
if you’re considering joining for metta may, know that i and all of us who’ll be there would love to have you be part of it
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥tinyurl.com/mettamay26❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
may you be well!
i offer coaching in dharma practice, meditation practice, emotional integration, and attachment healing. feel free to book a free intro call here: https://savvycal.com/danielbrottman/intro-call
the maymays really sell it
47 people omg yesssss!!! So delighted you are offering this. And 10/10 memes, per usual