Metta Meditation: Kindness Toward the Difficult

Over the years, I’ve attended quite a few metta meditation retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. A few years ago, a fellow attendee asked a question that I think a lot of us were struggling with. Metta (kindness) is considered to be a boundless, all-inclusive state. So how can we practice metta for people who are causing great harm in the world?

The Pali word, metta, doesn’t have a direct English counterpart. We often translate it as lovingkindness, good will, friendliness, or simply, kindness. Metta is the first of the brahma viharas (divine abodes), in Buddhist practice. The brahma viharas include four qualities—metta, karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy), and upekha (equanimity). With practice, these qualities can become “divine abodes” for us. They become habits of the mind and heart. They become our home base, the foundation for our thoughts, intentions and actions.

Practicing Metta Meditation

In metta meditation practice, we begin by cultivating kindness toward those who are easiest for us. These can include our loved ones—human and non-human. We then move to practicing kindness toward ourselves. From there, we practice goodwill toward our mentors, family and friends. These categories of beings can pretty easily conjure up kind feelings for us.

After spending time in these categories, metta meditation progresses toward more challenging groups. If our kindness is to be boundless, we can’t exclude people outside our circle of loved ones. The next category is “neutral” people. These are people we don’t really know. They can include someone we work with, but don’t really know; or someone we see at the grocery store, our favorite restaurant, or some other daily life situation. In a future post, I’ll explain the deeper significance of this category.

The final frontier, of course, is the “difficult person,” or less judgmentally, “the person with whom we’re experiencing difficulty.” We all have experienced people with whom we’re not really in sync. This can range from minute differences of opinion to threats or abuse. Why should we spend our good will on people who have hurt us or the people we love? If our metta is to be boundless, how can we practice in a way that feels authentic?

The Practice

Metta meditation is taught in many different ways. In the tradition I learned, we practice sending kindness to the categories as listed in the above section. We use phrases to help us generate the feelings of good will. (Below are the phrases that have evolved for me over time. Please note that there are many ways to word these phrases to suit your own preferences.):

• May you be safe.
• May you be happy.
• May you be healthy.
• May you live with ease.

In another post, I can elaborate on how we might alter these phrases, or suggest others that might resonate.

In the meantime, you can find much more detailed instructions for practice in this post.

Who Are Our “Difficult People?”

There are several different categories of people with whom we may be having difficulty. They range from mildly difficult to threatening or scary.

• Friends or family members with whom we’re experiencing minor disagreement. These are people we care about, but with whom we are experiencing some sort of mild difficulty.
• People who have antagonized us in some way, whether verbally or physically, with threats or cruelty.
• Political figures who are causing harm to great numbers of beings.

How to Practice Metta Meditation Toward the Difficult

In metta meditation practice, it’s most beneficial to start where it’s easiest. We begin practicing with easy beings so that we can generate a foundation of kindness that will be easier to extend to more challenging people. So when we decide to embark on the difficult category, it’s a good idea to start with someone in the first group above. These are people we care about with whom we’re having a mild or temporary disagreement.

People who have antagonized or threatened us are more challenging. For years, I lived next door to a man who suffered from schizophrenia. He threatened my spouse and me constantly, mostly verbally, but on one occasion, physically. He spent a few days in jail for this, and I ended up getting a court-ordered stalking injunction against him when he violated his probation. For years, until he moved away, I was afraid to work in my own front yard because of his threats. In metta practice, I didn’t feel safe inviting him into my personal space. But I could still generate kindness for him if I imagined that he was halfway around the world, where he couldn’t harm me.

Metta Toward a Harmful Person in Power

The most challenging metta practice for me has been to offer kindness to a political figure who’s causing immeasurable harm. Wishing them to be happy, healthy, etc., has been impossible. When asked about how to approach this, one of the Spirit Rock teachers suggested this phrase: May you be free from hatred. That’s because it is hatred, after all, that causes people to do harm. Practicing metta in this way does not condone the harm this person is causing. Instead, it’s a skillful way to free ourselves from the poison of hatred in our own minds and hearts. Even though I’m still not at a place where I can wish my particular difficult political figure to be happy, I can honestly wish him to be free from hatred.

Mending Friendship Through Metta Meditation

For several years, I used as my “difficult person” a friend/coworker who had, several times, dressed me down in public. While I’m fine with constructive criticism, the way in which the person approached it was very hurtful, and caused fractures in our shared community. As a result, we became estranged for several years. Still, I continued to practice metta for the person on retreat.

After a few years, I was on a metta meditation retreat, all set to make him/her my difficult person again. But I was happy to realize there was no sting left in my feelings for him/her. At that point, the person resumed their place in my “friends and family” category. Later, we met for lunch and I told him/her about the evolution my practice for them. We spoke truthfully, and with kindness, and were able to resolve our differences. Since then, we’ve returned to being close friends.

In some ways, what kindness practice comes down to is how do we want to live in these minds and hearts? Do we want to live in hate and resentment? (Remember: Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die.) Or do we want our baseline to be kindness and caring? We become what we practice. Practicing metta, even for those who are difficult, can help us live with greater ease and peace.

About Charlotte Bell

Charlotte Bell discovered yoga in 1982 and began teaching in 1986. Charlotte is the author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice and Yoga for Meditators, both published by Rodmell Press. Her third book is titled Hip-Healthy Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Guide to Protecting the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Pain (Shambhala Publications). She writes a monthly column for CATALYST Magazine and serves as editor for Yoga U Online. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte plays oboe and English horn in the Salt Lake Symphony and folk sextet Red Rock Rondo, whose DVD won two Emmy awards.