Explained in a style inspired by Richard Feynman
“Okay, so here’s the deal. You want to generate loving-kindness, right? You want to take this mind—this crazy, flickering, all-over-the-place thing—and tune it like a radio, so it starts broadcasting on the frequency of goodwill instead of static.
Now, first thing’s first: you don’t “make” Metta happen. It’s not some magic trick, it’s not about forcing yourself to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s already there. Somewhere in you, there’s already that feeling—maybe it’s small, maybe it’s covered up by a lot of junk, but it’s there. Your job is to uncover it.
So here’s what we do. We start simple. Imagine someone you like—doesn’t have to be a perfect person, just someone you feel naturally warm toward. Maybe a good friend, maybe your grandmother, maybe even your cat (cats are great for this). Got them? Okay. Now, bring up that feeling you get when you think of them happy.
That’s it. That’s Metta.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. That feeling? It’s not locked onto that person. It’s not like a laser beam that only works on one target. It’s a quality of the mind itself—it can expand, it can scale up. So now, let’s get a little experimental. Try it with yourself. Yeah, that’s right—turn that same warmth toward yourself, the way you would toward a close friend. Weird, huh? But notice—it works.
And now—here’s the fun part—we take this thing and run a thought experiment. What happens if you extend that same feeling outward? To neutral people? To difficult people? To everyone? What happens if you just keep going? If you let it get bigger, deeper, more natural—like a ripple spreading out from a drop of water?
At some point, you’ll notice something. It’s not about “you” feeling Metta for “them.” It’s just Metta. The whole idea of “who is generating it” and “who is receiving it” starts getting fuzzy. It’s like, at a certain scale, it’s just the way things are.
And the thing is—you don’t have to be perfect at it. You experiment. You play with it. You watch how it works. Some days it’s easy, some days it’s hard, but the main thing is—you keep tuning in to that fundamental frequency of goodwill. And once you do, you start to see that Metta isn’t just something you “practice”—it’s something that was there all along.
And that’s the trick. That’s the whole thing. Just tune in, and see what happens.”
Okay, that was fun. 😆 I think Feynman’s approach is perfect for Metta Bhavana—it keeps the curiosity, the experimental mindset, and the clarity while making the practice less mystical, more grounded in direct experience.