..续本文上一页mpossible (as for the arahants). Kama causes sex to appear attractive and is strengthened when the senses are not guarded. Hence the Buddha”s injunction for bhikkhus to restrain their senses, to some extent (for instance, limiting the amount of television that he watches, and other distracting amusements), and this will help to limit the arising kama making for greater peace of heart. Second is sneha, the viscous attachment which holds families together. This love is not totally selfish but rather regards the attachment as a bargain out of which oneself and others get something. For instance, the husband gets home cooking while the wife obtains security to rear a family. The terms of this bargain, of course, may differ quite widely. But sneha is only capable of being extended to a few people who are involved in this bargain. By contrast, metta or loving-kindness, is a love not hot with lust nor sticky with attachment: it is cool and does not consider personal benefits. The person who has metta is concerned with the happiness of others before he thinks about himself. No human relationship can last long and be of great benefit if it is not founded on metta, for only such love can be extended to other beings generally and without limitation to some group. Usually our relations with other people are made up of kama sometimes, sneha frequently, with a sprinkling of metta now and again. From the point of view of meditation practice, kama hinders it while metta helps it.

　　Metta must be practiced first towards oneself. That is to say, one cannot love others unless first one has established love in one”s own heart. To try spreading metta to others before strengthening it in oneself is like a poor man who proposes to give out money for others” benefit. To have metta for oneself means a relative absence of conflicts in oneself, to be at peace with oneself. So the first thing to do in sitting meditation is to repeat over and over again: "May I be at peace." When the mind becomes calm and one can feel about one”s heart the brightness of metta then it is possible to start practicing it towards other people. Having cultured loving-kindness in one”s heart, one may next picture any person whom one respects deeply and constantly wish for that person "May he (or she) be happy!" Having developed towards that person the same, or greater intensity of metta, then go on to see in the mind a person with whom one is just friendly, and after that a neutral person. Only then may one consider a person who is disliked or even one who is hated. In each case, the emotional tone accompanying the mental picture should be the same and only when it has reached the same intensity should one move on to the next person to be considered. It is useless to begin with those one dislikes as such practice is merely the extension of what is already there — aversion — rather than the development of something new — metta. To begin with the disliked just wearies oneself and gets one nowhere. In this meditation, thoughts of loving-kindness must be backed up by the emotional feeling associated with loving-kindness, if they are to be really effective in ridding oneself of aversion.

　　This power of metta is used to break down the "walls" which we erect around ourselves, the walls of aversion and dislike, so that metta, properly practiced, becomes by deep meditation not only widespread but infinite in extent. One to whom each person and each living being are equally dear, who wishes happiness for all sentient beings, visible and invisible in every direction and state of existence, whose heart is "endued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted, measureless, free from enmity and free from affliction" has truly succeeded with this practice.

　　But metta fails when it falls into either of t…

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