From: Jeff
Sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:40:17

Howdy. I'd like to throw in some of my own thoughts about Metta. In the past week I have gone through a plethora of feelings and emotions--a virtual rollercoaster ride. The difficulty at some points was extensive...so much so that I had to arise from seated meditation and pursue a more physically active form of mindfulness (i.e. walking meditation).

While Metta is a valuable practice tool, it must also be used with care and wisdom. I once remember Bhante Gunaratana commenting that if you cannot generate genuine Metta toward adversaries, then you should not try to force it. He cautioned that there is danger for the meditator here. One could easily move into a habitual practice of suppressing feelings, which leads to greater agitation in the mind later.

In my own life, I've found this to be sage advice. It is a common mistake for a meditator to supplant the "letting go" of anger with suppression of it. It is quite easy to delude oneself into thinking: "Oh, I'm not really angry about this, I should let it go and apply loving kindness."

The fact of the matter is that when you're angry, you're angry. Apply mindfulness and explore it thoroughly. Be patient and look for the feeling's source. Then, when you understand it, you can let go of it. (One should also be mindful not to let the anger transfer into unskillful speech or unskillful actions).

I offer this from my own personal experience in dealing with anger. For many years I had nearly perfected the art of suppressing my anger, rather than applying mindfulness to understand the anger's source. In the end, the suppression only served to intensify the anger.

In one sense, the tragedy of this past week is an opportunity for all of us to learn more about how our minds work. It is my hope that we will all come away from this with greater insight and a deeper understanding.

Dear Meditation Circle friends. I haven't responded to any of the e-mail regarding this tragedy, mostly because my emotions are so torn and overwhelmed that I have been afraid of offending anyone with my observations, but I do want to say something about Joe's question regarding loving kindness.

In it is not only a question about Buddhist ethics and practice but a pointing to something inexpressible in words that Zen practice "prepares" one for. Something very important. I hope the context of what I am trying to say will be clear, it's difficult to speak to this without adding to the confusion, but, Joe is really getting at something that mustn't be ignored.

Now, Doug is right when he speaks eloquently about the need to extend loving kindness so that we don't feed the engine of hatred, etc., and that Karmic energies are vast and interconnected. But, strangely enough, on another level practicing the Loving Kindness Meditation may be simply producing more Karma, the results of which we can't fathom.

Many questions arose in me when I confronted my own feelings as a result of all the recent e-mail about this. Does our loving kindness meditation come from our "genuine" feelings or is it done more as a commitment to Buddhist ethics regardless of our feelings? If I don't feel loving kindness am I a "good" Buddhist, etc. These are some of the questions I ask myself.

Trying to approach these questions honestly from either a rational or emotional perspective is daunting, and will not, I think, repeat, will not, result in an end to the suffering that we all feel.

There is another approach however, it's not an alternative nor a palliative, but it is a powerful one nevertheless. That approach is taught in Zen Koan practice.There are many Zen koans that deal with what is happening to all of us now -- that is the nature of Samsara and Suffering and the relief of suffering.

These are not curious riddles but powerful direct experiences that speak to the very heart of the matter.One koan is simply, "How do you stop suffering ?"

Don't explain it, don't "answer" the question, actually demonstrate how to stop suffering!

Another is, "Save a ghost!"

Now I won't give a description of what the answers to these koans are, but I will say that if there is the slightest separation, even a hairsbreadth of space, between you and the Suffering, then that separation is greater than the distance between Heaven and Earth, and the Suffering will never cease and only grow in its Karmic dimensions.

If we are practicing the Loving Kindness meditation because it's our Buddhist "duty" or because we feel it will somehow affect the vermin who committed this atrocity and that they need our loving kindness to loosen their hearts, or if we're doing it to make this world a better place, then we are blind fools and only creating more Greed, Hatred, and Ignorance. We are Attached to Loving Kindness!

The only way to stop the suffering of myself and the world is to become totally and absolutely present and one with it as you experience it and react out of that non-duality, that non-separation. That's what so many of those firemen did, so many ordinary people practicing moment-to-moment loving-kindness during the hours following the horror in New York. It's what what those heroic folks on Flight 93 must have done when they realized their end was near and knew what needed to be done to prevent more horror.

Joe, our pain, confusion, despair is real and doesn't need to be assuaged by wishing our enemies loving-kindness. Anger, rage, and thoughts of revenge will rise up and no one's immune to those feelings. Non-attachment to those feelings is, hopefully, what mindfulness practice prepares us for.