Is there an intermediate state or one state transitions into another?
When I don’t feel metta because deep down (unconsciously) I’m angry?
Acquiring metta is signalled by heading towards absorption, and it’s dependent on the overcoming of anger. Metta can also be threatened by greed, which is its near enemy. The difference between greed and anger and good will should be recognized in the mind by their limited spatial expansion, in Western terms ‘narrow mindedness’:
“when the awareness-release through good will is thus developed, thus pursued, any deed done to a limited extent no longer remains there, no longer stays there.”—Samyutta Nikaya 42.8
Also Majhima Nikaya 106
It does not happen automatically, it’s a directed process which is the preliminary preparing of the mind for the meditation subject:
“a fever based on the body arises within his body, or there is sluggishness in his awareness, or his mind becomes scattered externally. He should then direct his mind to any inspiring theme. As his mind is directed to any inspiring theme, gladness is born within him. In one who is gladdened, rapture is born. In one whose heart is enraptured, the body grows calm. His body calm, he feels pleasure. Feeling pleasure, his mind grows concentrated. He reflects, ‘I have attained the aim to which my mind was directed. Let me withdraw (my mind from the inspiring theme).”—Samyutta Nikaya 47.10
Removing anger needs more than just chanting the metta sutta. It requires the implememtation of tactics described in Majhima Nikaya 20, and here:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel026.html
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Imo, yes. Being free from anger is a start. However, I think rapture (i.e., a strong feeling of internal well-being) from samadhi is important for metta; which is why both metta & jhana are correlated with the Brahma realms.
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Anger is like a cloud. Thats why when metta appears, the cloud is gone, sleeping :). Thats why in body,mind,spirit anger needs to be worked on, so deep states reveal.
I answer from experience. Metta never disappears, because it’s a quality of awareness. So if there is anger seen from awareness, it’s not anger, it’s increased energy.
No, of course not. Each mental state is impermanent, including anger, which is not always present. There can be other states like equanimity etc.
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