So.
We've been really diving deep into the Metta practice in the past couple of weeks,
And here we are at the end of the month,
And we might transition a little bit at the beginning of next month.
But from where I sit right now,
I feel like Metta is much more relational.
Metta is a way of being in relationship.
And it asks us to listen.
To other people and to ourselves,
And it asks us to tell the truth.
And there is something very intimate about being willing to say,
This is what is true for me right now.
And then allowing another person to say,
This is what is true for me.
And it's not necessarily agreeing,
And maybe there's not even a whole lot of understanding,
But it is a willingness to just stay present.
Metta is not demanding that somebody become different before we can love them.
It's not saying,
I will accept you once you change.
It's really a willingness to make room for what's here.
And I think this is where the practice becomes particularly challenging.
Because acceptance doesn't mean that we like everything.
It just means that we stop fighting with the fact that this is what's happening right now.
Even when we don't like it.
And what if META is not about trying to make ourselves or someone else better?
Like,
What if it's about learning how to stay?
In loving relationship with what's actually here.
Dee sent me a picture of her and her.
And her.
Gown that the hospital offers.
With a peace sign and a big smile.
Stop fighting.
She's not fighting with the fact that's what's happening.
It's beautiful.
To soften rather than to force.
And there's another quality of Meadow that I don't want to overlook.
Because matter also takes fierceness.
It takes courage to stay in relationship.
When we are in pain or when we are angry.
It takes courage to listen when every part of us wants to defend ourselves.
And sometimes it takes courage to turn towards ourselves when we would much rather make someone else wrong.
I wrote this poem on my son's 16th birthday last Wednesday that I'd like to share with you.
We had a fight on your 16th birthday.
I couldn't hear your righteous riff on freedom.
Hours before you got your driver's license.
And just like that,
You changed.
Gone was the ask for permission.
Here is the sharp-toned orator of independence.
What a bag of goods we've been sold,
As if independence is real.
As I walked home,
Not knowing how to meet you.
I turned.
And met my broken self.
What strikes me now is that I didn't know how to meet him.
I was angry and he was angry.
He was 16 and discovering this new thing called independence.
And I was a mother suddenly encountering a person who was no longer asking for permission in quite the same way.
I couldn't hear him telling me what he was going to do now that he could drive.
Trips he intended on making within the first week of having his license.
I could only hear his sharp tone,
The defiance,
And the challenge.
And then what I did was I walked home from the restaurant.
We took him to celebrate this milestone birthday.
I left at the end of this tense dinner and I walked home and something happened.
I turned and I met my broken self.
That is matter.
Not the pretty version.
Not the version where I was sending loving kindness to my son and everything inside me immediately became peaceful.
No,
Not that.
But the willingness to stop and see what is actually happening inside of me.
To see that and to recognize that my reaction wasn't only about him.
There was something in me that was tender.
Something frightened?
Something that had had its own history.
And if I could meet that part of myself with some kindness.
Perhaps I could eventually meet my son differently.
And this is where I think Metta becomes a practice of truth.
Because loving kindness doesn't ask us to pretend.
It doesn't ask us to say everything is fine when it isn't.
It asks us to become willing to see more clearly.
And sometimes seeing clearly is uncomfortable.
Sometimes it means recognizing.
That we've been hurt or that we've hurt someone else.
Sometimes it means acknowledging that we are carrying an old wound into a present day relationship.
Means that we have like to have this fierceness,
This fierce courage to stay.
To stay long enough to listen.
To ourselves,
And then.
To the other.
To let the other person be who they are rather than who we need them to be.
To discover that what we thought was an argument may actually be an invitation into a deeper relationship.
That's why I think meta is relational.
It isn't something we perfect inside ourselves and then bring it out into the world.
We practice in relationship.
We practice listening and speaking the truth.
We practice allowing ourselves to be seen,
And then seeing another person,
Even when What we see is difficult.
And sometimes we practice the fierce willingness to soften.
And this This is where nature has been a great teacher for me.
It's like how water softens a stone.
It doesn't do it by force.
It does it through persistence and through contact and through patience.
The water doesn't ask the stone to become something else before touching it.
It just keeps simply meeting it.
And over time.
Something changes.
And maybe this is one of the gifts of the Metta practice.
You know,
Not that we become endlessly nice.
Not that we stop having boundaries or stop speaking difficult truths.
But that we learn another way of meeting what is difficult.
We become a little less interested in winning,
A little less interested in changing someone,
And more interested in seeing and staying with what is actually here.
And perhaps like water,
We learn that softness and fierceness are not opposites.
Sometimes the fiercest thing that we can do.
Is remain open.
And sometimes the bravest thing we can do is to listen.
And sometimes the most loving thing we can do.
Is turn around and meet the broken places in ourselves.
So thank you.
I hope this lands for some of you.
