How is mettā best translated (IYHO)?

Q & A
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I dug around youtube a bit and found a Far Shore talk given by Bhante Sujato. At about 10 minutes in, he discusses metta in such a way that it illustrates, at least for me, why love (in its Aristotelian, unconditional sense) is the strongest word for metta, in translation .

I was very fortunate to spend a Sunday with Ajahn Maha Chatchai this year, and with the help of his disciple Vira, I had a chance to talk with this great Metta Ajahn. One of the points that he wished to make to me (and all that meet him) was that Metta is always practiced without any expectation of reciprocity; it is completely unconditional in its practice.

Thinking about this today, love in its Dhammic and Aristotelian sense would always be selfless and expressed without any motive for reciprocity. Love, beyond the others, is a powerful word and is harmonic with the power of Metta. . And, when I listen to this talk, above, I get the sense of how deep this Metta practice and understanding is for Bhante Sujato. We can knock word choices back and forth across the net like tennis balls, but it seems to me that it’s difficult ( at least for me) to suggest translations without a deep reservoir of almost jhanic appreciation of how these Pali words feel, swirl, and move in the mind, with a deep history of practice.

I offer the above just as comment, and gratitude for everyone’s comments. This is a thoroughly enjoyable discussion. Even Bhante notes, as I recall, in the first part of the talk segment on Metta, that it is a complicated concept.

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22

I get the point about the overall practice being for protection, to be “untroubled, free from hate and enmity”; however, I think we all agree that the actual practice is an emotional development. As such, shouldn’t it be a powerfully emotional word? Compassion, for instance, has this kind of power. For me, and this is just my personal opinion, good-will is kinda like at the end of the workweek saying “Have a good weekend, Bob.”

Also, maybe for future polls we could include a short, relevant passage with the translation option, like so:

Just as a mother at the risk of life
has goodwill for and protects her child, her only child

,

Just as a mother at the risk of life
has loving-kindness for and protects her child, her only child

,

Just as a mother at the risk of life
is friendly with and protects her child, her only child

,

Just as a mother at the risk of life
loves and protects her child, her only child

(I’ll take suggestions if any of the above choices aren’t worded to satisfaction)

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I’m not quite sure I understand what you mean by “emotional development” in relation to the practice and metta. Could you elaborate on the use of this term?

as far as your poll, the pali is quite clear that it is some form of “as a mother protects her only child”. Here is from my current project of translating the sutta:

Mātā yathā niyaṃ puttaṃ
(mother)(just as)(ones own)(child)

Āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe
(duration of life)(one child)(protects)

Evam pi sabba‧bhūtesu
(in this way)(even so)(all)(beings-locative)

Mānasaṃ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ.
(mind, having intention of)(beings)(limitless)

Mettañ ca sabbalokasmiṃ
(metta) ( and/then/now ) ( all –the world(loc) )

as far as goodwill being lame-wristed in terms of emotional power I certainly don’t feel so :

Goodwill from dictionary.com : friendly disposition; benevolence; kindness.

having a feeling of friendliness and benevolence, camaraderie and companionship, for all beings is a pretty powerful thing.

For me it’s like looking up at the night sky and seeing myself as a part of a universe of trillions of planets with who knows what kind of life, and understanding we are all in samsara together, all living beings sharing chemisty in one form or another. I don’t “love” those beings, but I certainly can feel a strong connection, I can wish them good-will and harbor no ill-will towards them.

where as love :

1.a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3.sexual passion or desire.
4.a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
5.(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like):
Would you like to see a movie, love?
6. a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
7. sexual intercourse; copulation.
8. a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one’s neighbor.

you have to go faaaar down the list of definitions to somehow equate love with metta… I can’t see myself having a passionate affection or warm attachment for all beings… doesn’t quite fit.

If I was teaching metta, and I wanted to use the word love, I’d have to go into the three kinds of love (eros(spousal love), filial(family love), agape(universal love) ) and spend all kinds of extra time explaining words, instead of teaching metta.

I’m not saying you are wrong for wanting to use love, we each have our own preferences in our practice and I fully understand how love can be a strong word for people. I am however attempting to give a strong case for why goodwill is important, not lacking, and can be a viable and strong way understanding the practice of metta.

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24

Mercy covers idea of metta best, IMHO.

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Pali says clearly that one skilled in good should protect cultivation of limitless citta for every being just “as a mother protects her only child” . “Mother protecting her only child” is not a description of what metta is.

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I honestly don’t know enough Pali to be able to dispute any of that, I can delete that section of my post if you’d like.

Yea, if anything, the polls and discussions recently have reminded me of what a hard job translating must be.

Regarding emotional development, I think that the BV’s are about developing strong positive emotions to counteract negative ones. I’m open to being corrected on this though.

Another point I’d like to make is something the Dalai Lama is fond of saying. He says that humans have a part of them that is good-natured mostly because of a mother’s love in their early development, children deprived of that usually don’t end up being very good-natured. I think there’s some truth in that.

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in my very limited study and practice of pali so far(i’m miles from being any kind of pali scholar), I have just glanced the surface as to why so many monastics have said " if you really want to get a sense of the teachings, learn pali". how some words can have so many meanings and connotations and be translated in so many ways leaves this up to major interpretation differences. Frankly I tend to stick with the pali word these days unless I absolutely have to use a translation.

where are “emotions” in the suttas? I think this is where I was confused. I would say “mind-states” or the tone of the mind, citta is usually considered the affective aspect of the mind, rather then emotions. in that regard yes developing positive skillful mind-states, which I guess you could consider emotions to be a part of, and abandoning unskillful ones is right effort, as I stated above, so it looks like we agreed it was just a matter of semantics.

hmm, in a general sense I’d say that of course whomever takes care of a child can have a strong impact on their nature. As someone who worked in child protective services for near a decade I’m not too quick to jump on that as utterly truthful, especially since I’ve met many children who have been through hell yet were very good natured, but having some kind of kind, compassionate, and responsible adult is very important in a child’s development for sure.

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I’d suggest

metta --> benevolence

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29

This is very helpful for making sense of how to develop metta and should be flagged whenever a wiki for the specific topic (of metta) comes up!

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Can you lay this out or provide evidence for this? I see people say this but I just don’t get it.

Sorry I really don’t think anything short of love can cut it. We’re talking about something so powerful that it can take you through 4 jhanas and to liberation, something that can stop a raging bull elephant in it’s tracks.

‘Benevolence’, ‘goodwill’ and ‘protection’ are too weak for that. I really think love is the best word we have. I get why it might be seen as imperfect, but it’s obvious that it’s the other definitions of love that are wrong, not this one.

Why are we so scared of ‘love’?

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In my case, that word has so much baggage and connotative confusion… it’s used in such broad ways that for me it fails to convey anything other than a vague, generic positive regard. Mothers love children, people love cheesecake, some love helping others and some love a good rainstorm…

For me, benevolence is a guideline for a suitable orientation towards other life; love can be directed towards inanimate things, and is also a somewhat inappropriate term to use in certain situations.

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Yeah I get what you mean. It’s a failure of the English language that the singular word ‘love’ has been used in such a huge variety of ways. But I think context makes it clear what is meant.
Benevolence just feels a little distant and sterile to me?

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Well, and I have sesquipedalian tendencies that can be malapropos in contexts such as these.

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34

This is one of the most compelling cases I’ve yet been presented with in favour of ‘love’ (that and the fact that it’s Ayya Khema translation choice, and such is my ‘weakness’ for her that I have a pretty much blanket “well, that must be right then” policy) so much thanks for that!

I personally, found an ease and resonance when I first came across the ‘goodwill’ translation - within my own connotation field it has even, equanimous, stable/trustable-kindness qualities and indicates a little more to the ‘impersonal love’ that’s being pointed towards (as I’ve thus far understood things).

For me, the operative phrase here is “within my own connotation field”. In and of themselves none of these words necessarily carries more accurate meaning than another - the semantic magic appears to happen when words crash into our personal webs of linguistic associations.

Much as I’m hugely appreciative of the excellent case that’s been put forward for ‘love’ and the reflection it opens me to, I not sure it’s quite right to say that any of these words are necessarily ‘lame’ or for that matter a source of fear. By way of example, I’m still a bit cross-eyed by the notion that ‘stillness’ might for some be much too plain and ordinary to be a suitable translation for ‘samadhi’. By my way of seeing, if all a person knows is mental turbulence there can be nothing more extraordinary than stillness. But of course, I recognise the word’s quiet, understated aspect and can understand why some people feel it is deficient. My point being that the power of any given word shouldn’t necessarily be assumed to be universal (for ease let’s totally suspend the fact that its not even static situation locally).

Rather than seeing this as a failure of the English language, I’d sooner say that if there is any failing it is with regards to our expectations of what the language tool can do for us and how it works. For my own money I’d treat anyone of these words as an opening proposition that invites us into an enquiry, and my guess is that within such an enquiry at some point we’ll bump into all of the other possible words that could have been used and the various flavours and implications they have.

Kinda like here. Thanks all. :slight_smile:

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Hi @Cara,
Totally agree about the power of metta. Personally I would much rather see the word untranslated (and it seems it commonly is, and I would bet is probably right up there at the top with Pali words people who practice, especially in the early Buddhist tradition, know even if they don’t know Pali)

I agree that ‘love’ has a power which may not be as strong in other translations, but for me it also has lots of connotations (and baggage) that are unfortunate in English. Not to mention that there are many ‘types’ of love and English is not very good at differentiating. If that’s used, I wish it could be somehow qualified.

I like ‘benevolence’, for me it’s both warm and vast and comes closest in meaning to metta.

Oops, jsut saw your 2nd reply to @daverupa after first posting this.

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cant reply quote RN but…
@daverupa LOL fair enough!!! I understand what you mean about the broad connotative definitions of love too…

@Aminah excellent, excellent points - connotation fields, yes, that is what it boils down to! From having met and been in the presence of some truly inspiring practitioners, I just can’t call what I saw, felt and observed from them anything but love. But I admit I do have a very strong personal definition of non-romantic love.
I think your last point is most interesting, the translation is an ongoing investigation into the meaning itself…

@Linda yes agreed to many of your points, but still can’t get on the benevolence boat :smile:

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37

because friendliness/amity (maitri congate of mitra) is not love

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But they are just words someone chose as a translation, which may also not be accurate… I got curious about what you said and just found this on Wikipedia -

Metta is found in pre-Buddhist Vedic Sanskrit texts as Maitrī, Maitra and Mitra, which are derived from the ancient root Mid (love),[13] and these Vedic words appear in the Samhita, Aranyaka, Brahmana and Upanishad layers of texts in the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda.[36]

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39

@Cara, Bhante G.'s argument for the interpretation of Buddha’s advice on how to protect one’s own metta thoughts as his/her only child can be found from around minutes 25-30 of this video.

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40

I’m sure you know the simile of the saw (MN 21), where the Buddha teaches to have thoughts of metta even towards the ones who cuts of your limbs with a saw - i.e. in this kind of situations one should protect thoughts of metta toward all beings in the same way as a mother would protect from death her only son.

As Dhammanando Bhikkhu once wrote:

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.
(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.

Feelings of mother or father towards her or his children are seen in Early Buddhism as a form of attachment - i.e. are a cause of dukkha. It seems to me that it’s highly doubtful that they can be also a means for liberation.

Essentially metta is a wish for someone to be good and happy. It doesn’t involve being affectionate with somebody, beings friends with somebody or looking after somebody. See for example Ahirāja-sutta (AN 4.67), where bhikkhus are allowed to chant this words for their protection:

I have good will (metta) for the Virupakkhas,
good will for the Erapathas,
good will for the Chabyaputtas,
good will for the Dark Gotamakas.

I have good will for footless beings,
good will for two-footed beings,
good will for four-footed beings,
good will for many-footed beings.

May footless beings do me no harm.
May two-footed beings do me no harm.
May four-footed beings do me no harm.
May many-footed beings do me no harm.

May all creatures,
all breathing things, all beings
—each & every one—
meet with good fortune.
May none of them come to any evil.

Limitless is the Buddha,
limitless the Dhamma,
limitless the Sangha.
There is a limit to creeping things:
snakes, scorpions, centipedes,
spiders, lizards, & rats.
I have made this safeguard,
I have made this protection.
May the beings depart.
I pay homage to the Blessed One,
homage
to the seven rightly self-awakened ones.