Teagan White/Society6

Followers of this blog may recall how I have struggled with metta. Vipassana, despite its obvious difficulties, seems to me to be the easier practice. It is at its basis, a very concrete task that may be challenging to attain on a procedural level, but is relatively easy to grasp on a conceptual one.

Like many others, I had always thought of metta of pulling a warm and fuzzy feeling out of my heart and projecting it toward others. Of course I didn’t frame it that way, but in hindsight, that is what I was trying to do, especially when I just began meditating. It seems to me that this approach is encouraged by a lot of articles (granted, they were mostly beginner’s articles) that I have read about metta. Metta is really about the opposite. Instead of projecting outwards with greater intensity, you are withdrawing projections in order to make room for the Other. Or, more accurately, you are dissolving/silencing/being mindful of your projections which is where the supporting role of vipassana comes in.

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