Getting Metta and Metta

[supergee]

As I more and more feel that I am living in satirical sf, rather than the kind with space and robot maids and computer screens that don't move when you're trying to write on them, what keeps me going is the people I care about. One of them, Amy Thomson, has suggested keeping them in mind with a Buddhist prayer known as metta. I'm doing it, and I encourage you to do likewise. Here it is:

May X be safe.
May X be healthy and strong.
May X be peaceful and free from suffering.
May X be happy.

Comments

[johnpalmer]

Yes - one of the exercises is to try this on people further and further removed from one's "monkeysphere" - that term coming from someone who suggested that, given the size of the human brain, we can only really hold 50 or so real humans in our brain (smaller monkey brains = smaller social groupings)).

Eventually, one should try it with one's enemies. It helps here if you have faith that true strength and happiness lead to goodness/rightness/morality/whatever.