Metta: Loving-kindness

The usual translation of METTA is “loving-kindness.” As with the other three brahmaviharas—KARUNA, or compassion; MUDITA, joy; and UPEKKHA, equanimity—metta is both something we can practise and a natural, inherent state that arises with a more open and spacious way of being. The practice of metta involves generating and cultivating an experience and attitude of loving-kindness toward all beings....

As we extend loving-kindness to ourselves, to our places of relational difficulty, to those we love and care for, to all beings everywhere, we begin the process of opening the heart. Allowing ourselves to open unconditionally helps us to expand, to loose the contractions of self in a genuine way and discover our capacity to love all things and all people. As we practise sending and receiving metta, we deepen into the realization that we ARE that love, unbounded, unconditional, universal.

-- Excerpts written by Jonathan White and appearing in Dharma Diary with Teachings, Meditations, Stories and Information for the Spiritual Path (2007)