True, and an excellent point. Maybe it’s personal, but I believe it certainly can. Love is love, the attachment is the tainting that comes from ownership, jealousy, exclusivity, selfishness, greed, lust, etc that can exist with or without ‘love’.
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“joy”?
check out the lyrics for this song, and notice how “joy” is used, and how “love” is used. “joy” seems to be a better fit for metta as a brahmavihara radiated to all without condition. i understand how people like the emotional punch the word packs, but “love” just has too much baggage.
Lyrics
Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
I never understood a single word he said
But I helped him a-drink his wine
And he always had some mighty fine wine
Singin’
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
If I were the king of the world
Tell you what I’d do
I’d throw away the cars and the bars and the war
Make sweet love to you
Sing it now
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
You know I love the ladies
Love to have my fun
I’m a high life flyer and a rainbow rider
A straight shootin’ son-of-a-gun
I said a straight shootin’ son-of-a-gun
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the world
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
I want to tell you
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me
Joy to the world
All the boys and girls
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there’s this sentimental hippie ideal of “make love, not war”, and that’s great as far as that goes (from a conventional perspective), but when we dig deeper into the situation the conditionality and dependent arisen nature of deluded actions is that when you start “making love”, war is just around the corner. as the EBT suttas say, once deep attachment, lust set in, identity clinging, the need to protect acqusitions and competitition for limited desirable resources, arguments lead to taking up of weapons which leads to war. can’t have “love” without “war”. but if it’s benevolence, good will, metta, etc, then you can be free of war.
it will be interesting to see how Bhante’s translation turns out using “love” for metta. maybe the brotherly love or altruistic love will be apparent. i applaud Bhante for taking bold risks though.
@frankk I appreciate your interesting interpretation of love and war! Of course, ‘love’ and ‘making love’ as it is known in the vernacular of our times, should certainly not be correlated.
My point would be that the core meaning of love should be free from…
Whatever leads to that is not love, and love will lead to whatever is…not that.
Yes why not! 
Well, we have to admit it gets attention doesn’t it. 
Not at all to rain on Bhante’s bold, risky parade, as mentioned above Ayya Khema went with “love”, so it’s not a new idea by any stretch. In fairness, though, she didn’t translate 4 nikayas.
Can we just agree that “loving-kindness” is thoroughly peculiar rendering we can cheer the fading away of (I still pull a face of ‘say what now?!?’ when I hear it) and quietly use our own word of choice in our heads if we’re one of the ones “love” is insurmountably problematic for (with it might be added, very good reason).
For my own part, I’d really like to thank @Cara for your input here, because although I never really minded the word, I certainly like it a lot more listening to your descriptions of what the word points to for you. It’s really gladdened me and I think you’ve done a great job of going beyond the word and drawing out the qualities it relates to.
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I can’t improve on Ven Dhammanando’s analysis below -
“mātā yathā niyam puttaṃ, āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe,
evampi sabbabhūtesu, mānasam bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ.”
“As a mother might protect her own son, her only son, unstinting even of her own life, even so should he cultivate a mind [of friendliness], setting no limits with respect to any beings.”
มารดาถนอมบุตรคนเดียวผู้เกิดในตน ด้วยชีวิต ฉันใด พึงเจริญเมตตามีในใจไม่มีประมาณ ในสัตว์ทั้งปวง แม้ฉันนั้น
(Karaṇīyamettā Sutta, Sn. 149)
The English translation will probably look rather different to others you are familiar with, for I have tried to make it clear that “own son” in the simile’s vehicle should correspond to “mind” in the simile’s tenor. That is to say, it is the mettā-yogi’s thought of mettā that is to be acted upon in the manner of a mother guarding her own son. Every other English translation that I’ve seen either misleads the reader into supposing that “own son” corresponds to “all beings” or else leaves the correspondence unclear.
Edit - I’ve put the above in quotes, as I think the readers thought this was my translation, when it was Ven Dhammanando’s.
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For what it’s worth, Ven. Thanissaro also agrees with the interpretation Sylvester has presented. I heard this personally from him and made a note of it at a daylong on the brahmaviharas a few years ago.
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I prefer “benevolence”
Also, I like Ven. Analayo’s assertion that metta is to be directed in all directions and isn’t limited to living beings or sentient beings. It helps me to engage more lovingly towards everything.
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Where is this? I’ve not seen anything in the suttas that says anything like this, however I actually practice metta towards inanimate objects as well, it makes perfect sense to me because if we can get angry at these things(objects, systems, institutions, ideas etc) we can practice metta to let that anger go.
the whole point of metta is the letting go of ill-will in your own mind, so if you have ill-will towards an object, that mind state is harmful, because anytime anger infests your mind for any reason it is heavy and horrid.
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Ven. Analayo notes that in the simile of the Conch Blower as well as the Vatthupama sutta (Ekottarika-agama), radiating the brahmaviharas in all directions encompasses the entire world and does not specify any particular object. Later interpretations such as the Mahavibhasa and Visuddhimagga involve taking living beings as the object but the early discourses don’t make that distinction.
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Thanks Sylvester for that translation!
But I still don’t get ‘you should protect your metta’ out of that?
The related objects of the verbs are ‘mind’ and ‘son’, so I agree there’s no need to interpret the passage as saying we should protect all beings as a mother protects a child. So if that’s ruled out there’s no need to convert the meaning to ‘protecting the mind’.
I just notice that the verbs in each part of the simile are different-
Mother protects child
Yogi cultivates metta/mind (metta is cultivated)
If we are already given a clear description of what the meditator should do to mind/metta, why should cultivate be changed to protect?
It seems more like its either saying -
Yogi should cultivate metta with the care, conviction and totality that a mother would protect her son
Or
Yogi should cultivate metta to all beings without limit or exception as mother protects son without limit or exception (unstinting). (Which makes sense contextually because the rest of the sutta is about all the size, shapes, locations and types of beings one should cultivate metta for).
Maybe related also to - [quote=“Zenqi, post:61, topic:3832”]
Ven. Analayo’s assertion that metta is to be directed in all directions and isn’t limited to living beings or sentient beings.
[/quote]
Aaaaaanyway, I am not going to go on about it. Maybe it’s ambiguous which part of the statement the simile is meant to relate to. I just don’t see sufficient evidence to supplant the given verb cultivate for the meaning of protect, which have very different meanings.
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Considering that the Buddha is encouraging us to cultivate a boundless mind and boundless metta, why cut corners and stop with all beings? Let’s really be boundless and include every thing and every situation that arises!
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Hi Cara
That was Ven Dhammanando’s analysis of the simile which I lifted from his Facebook post some years back.
I just notice that the verbs in each part of the simile are different-
Mother protects child
Yogi cultivates metta/mind (metta is cultivated)
If we are already given a clear description of what the meditator should do to mind/metta, why should cultivate be changed to protect?
This won’t be the only simile where the simile’s verb does not even come close to approximating the tenor. Think of the bathman’s simile for the First Jhana. If I understand vitakkavicāra of the First Jhana to refer to MN 78’s kusalasaṅkappa, then even though the verbs describing the bathman’s actions (pour, knead, sprinkle) do not come close to the “auto-pilot” of one’s skilful purpose, it does highlight what actually keeps one in the First Jhana, ie the pleasure and zest born of seclusion act as the glue.
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Try this - http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=25879&hilit=Analayo
What Ven Analayo has done is find evidence that the Pali pericopes on the Immeasurables being radiated to “all as to oneself” (sabbattatāya) may be a textual corruption and that the correct reading is sabbatthatāya (completely).
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Sorry, a side questiin. Any chance to get Ven Analayo to become a member of this forum? It would be great to be able to have him interacting with us here and making the best use of the easy sutta reference and parallels SC makes available.
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Also an aside for anyone interested: Ven Anālayo will be offering an e-learning course this coming spring. This was also mentioned in another discussion on this site but it was awhile ago so some people may have missed it.
I highly recommend his courses!
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I don’t know about you but I acknowledge I have to be constantly protecting my daily cultivation of right aspirations - letting go, benevolence/friendliness and nonviolence/compassion - from deeply ingrained habits of attachment/acquisition, I’ll will/fault finding and aggression/anger. 
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We tried some time ago to get scholars (such as Ven Analayo) to become users on Discourse. Unsurprisingly, they were all very busy.
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Well sure! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t think this is important - “desire for the maintenance of arisen wholesome states, for their nondecay, increase, expansion, and fulfilment by development” is a part of right effort after all - I just don’t feel that this passage is saying that. Or at least, not only that perhaps.
Above Ven Dhammanando says that the ‘thought of metta’ presumably should be guarded as a mother her son. But this seems problematic to me.
The idea of ‘protecting’ metta seems strange to me. It’s not fitting with what I understand of metta and the nature of the mind. Because I think of protecting as guarding, concealing and holding something without wavering, and I don’t think of mind states like metta or even the thought of metta as something we can develop once, then it just stays there and we have to protect it. One is mindful, and ‘re-cultivates’ it, recollects it, throughout the day perhaps.
I use metta as my meditation object and it takes significant concentration and effort to generate and hold the feeling of strong metta (for me anyway 
).
The idea of walking around all day doing that just feels comical to me because I wouldn’t get much else done. It’s like MN 19 on positive thoughts…
“As I abided thus, diligent, ardent, and resolute, a thought of non-ill will arose in me…a thought of non-cruelty arose in me. I understood thus: ‘This thought of non-cruelty has arisen in me. This does not lead to my own affliction, or to others’ affliction, or to the affliction of both; it aids wisdom, does not cause difficulties, and leads to Nibbāna. If I think and ponder upon this thought even for a night, even for a day, even for a night and day, I see nothing to fear from it. But with excessive thinking and pondering I might tire my body, and when the body is tired, the mind becomes strained, and when the mind is strained, it is far from concentration.’ So I steadied my mind internally, quieted it, brought it to singleness, and concentrated it. Why is that? So that my mind should not be strained.
Quite right, although in the example you give different actions are given for how the yogi should treat the mind, the simile is in regard to the spirit it is done in, it seems. For example, as you say, the yogi is not instructed to literally knead and sprinkle the mind with water, but with the same focus, thoroughness and completeness as the bathman, distribute rapture and pleasure throughout the body. Similarly, the simile is not instructing us to literally protect mind/metta as a mother, son, but to cultivate or spread the metta in as limitless and unstinting a manner.
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