It may be of note that Dan Harris is currently working on a book about metta. Has been for some time now, actually, but he seems to hate whatever book-writing process he’s using, so we may or may not never actually see this one come to print.
I’ve been listening to his 10% Happierpodcast for a while now, and I’ve noticed that he’s undergone a massive and obvious change regarding his expressed attitudes toward compassion meditation and his apparent opinion of its importance. In earlier episodes when he says that words like “heart” and “loving-kindness” bother him, it seems like he’s being fully genuine. Later, those claims seem to become more about his interview style and connecting with his audience than reality. Recently, he’s fully admitted that talk of being “allergic” to the sappy-sounding words is an old schtick that he’s trying to stop because it’s no longer consistent with how he’s thinking about the topic. It seems like he’s been convinced that compassion practice is pretty important.
(It’s a good podcast, BTW. Harris interviews plenty of really interesting people!)
Harris currently has two books titled “10% Happier: [excessive subtitle]” and “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics” in the US. Maybe there were some translation shenanigans with the German publisher?
Regarding the metta stuff, I wonder whether it is a nice-to-have but basically separate from meditation essentials. After all, Zen guys seem to say that zen is just the posture.
I wonder whether it is a nice-to-have but basically separate from meditation essentials.
I’ve heard teachers with a Theravada background talk about two “wings to awakening”: wisdom (or insight) and compassion. The claim is that without developing both in a relatively even way, you can end up badly unbalanced and unable to achieve full realization of the practice. I’ve heard that non-westernized versions tend to teach metta before insight meditation, though I don’t recall the exact justification off the top of my head.
It seems to me that without at least some of the discipline that comes from doing a sit-and-be-aware meditation for a while, it could be substantially more difficult to really dig in on the wishing-people-well stuff. On the other hand, I’ve heard several teachers say that we have a self-compassion problem in the west that makes insight meditation harder to do effectively/*. Maybe there’s something to the wings thing after all?
/* Apparently westerners (and particularly Americans) tend to have a nasty habit of berating ourselves for being bad at meditation instead of just starting again when we get distracted.
It may be of note that Dan Harris is currently working on a book about metta. Has been for some time now, actually, but he seems to hate whatever book-writing process he’s using, so we may or may not never actually see this one come to print.
I’ve been listening to his 10% Happier podcast for a while now, and I’ve noticed that he’s undergone a massive and obvious change regarding his expressed attitudes toward compassion meditation and his apparent opinion of its importance. In earlier episodes when he says that words like “heart” and “loving-kindness” bother him, it seems like he’s being fully genuine. Later, those claims seem to become more about his interview style and connecting with his audience than reality. Recently, he’s fully admitted that talk of being “allergic” to the sappy-sounding words is an old schtick that he’s trying to stop because it’s no longer consistent with how he’s thinking about the topic. It seems like he’s been convinced that compassion practice is pretty important.
(It’s a good podcast, BTW. Harris interviews plenty of really interesting people!)
Harris currently has two books titled “10% Happier: [excessive subtitle]” and “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics” in the US. Maybe there were some translation shenanigans with the German publisher?
Thanks for the observations.
Regarding the metta stuff, I wonder whether it is a nice-to-have but basically separate from meditation essentials. After all, Zen guys seem to say that zen is just the posture.
Glad they were interesting!
I’ve heard teachers with a Theravada background talk about two “wings to awakening”: wisdom (or insight) and compassion. The claim is that without developing both in a relatively even way, you can end up badly unbalanced and unable to achieve full realization of the practice. I’ve heard that non-westernized versions tend to teach metta before insight meditation, though I don’t recall the exact justification off the top of my head.
It seems to me that without at least some of the discipline that comes from doing a sit-and-be-aware meditation for a while, it could be substantially more difficult to really dig in on the wishing-people-well stuff. On the other hand, I’ve heard several teachers say that we have a self-compassion problem in the west that makes insight meditation harder to do effectively/*. Maybe there’s something to the wings thing after all?
/* Apparently westerners (and particularly Americans) tend to have a nasty habit of berating ourselves for being bad at meditation instead of just starting again when we get distracted.