Metta Sutta

Most of us encounter religious tracts or core texts that lay out ways to live and reach the Kingdom of Heaven. The abrahamic religions give us The Bible, The Koran, The Torah and the Talmud. In these texts we find thou shalt nots, the spiritual Jihad and the rigorous observations of ceremony. All of these paths are long and exhausting and they all admonish us to be in a state of “righteousness.” This righteous state is a mix of doing no wrong, following the rules and-above all-following the rules of those we have decided are spiritual leaders.

The Pali Canon is a collection of the sacred teachings of Theraveda Buddhism and the Metta Sutta is presented as the Buddha’s words on kindness. If you want a real challenge in your spiritual life it can be found here. I ran across this line and was gob smacked: ” Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another. ” I instantly knew that this was a barrier too high for me to cross. These days, there are many, many of whom I wish ill-will …many that I wish to be buried under a mountain of consequences. My kindness chops are pretty poor.

My relationships with friends, family and society at large are ringed about with walls of expectation and judgment and my understanding is nowhere great enough to apply kindness and empathy to the wounds I feel they may have caused. To this extent, I’m not free.

But I secretly believe that my judgments are righteous.

This is bad news for my spiritual journey because I carry the weight of my grievances, anger and resentment with me wherever I go and I will not go far under such a burden. Following rules and traditions have nothing to do with the growth of the soul. In Proverbs 21:2 the Bible gets it right: “a person may think their own way is right but God weighs the heart.” A kind heart weighs much less than the the heart of anger and resentment …it is the best load to carry on the trek.

We are now living in a society where grievance, anger and resentment are the order of the day. Being kind is getting harder for all of us. Perhaps our best way is to take a side trail that requires us to wish no one harm. This trail will have many difficult twists and many unforeseen switchbacks but it seems to be the only way to move forward.

We all need to be spared from righteousness.