Felipe C.:
Hi, Simon and Nick,
I'm interested in the relation between metta and the actualist method (cultivate happiness and harmlessness). Here is my concern better worded by Trent...
Trent:the absence of a fabricated personality / the absence of conceit means that one is automatically safe and benevolent. that condition of benevolence is not, and cannot be, fabricated or generated. what is commonly meant and caused by a 'metta practice' is the opposite direction from this, because it is an exercise in fabricating feelings, which fabrication must be based on an identity (feelings are conceited by their very nature).
to practice metta that can actually eliminate conceit means thinking about it with a different context. such a practice is an active process of carefully dismantling one's identity, appreciating life's abundance so as not to grasp for further identification, enjoying the peace and ease of being sincerely intent on contentedness, and kindly wishing the best for one's self and others.
My doubt is if this kind of fabrication could trigger and fuel emotions like nurture, love, compassion, and point to a different direction (say, to "good" feelings, instead of "felicitous and harmless" ones)
After contemplating this, what I have been doing is approaching metta as a deconstructive and indirect exercise (desiring to tear down my own identities that cause suffering to others) more than a constructive and direct one (actively desiring well-being to people). In this way, it feels more like harmlessness (which I think is less driven) than compassion or love (that can set the trap to fall into heroic and blissful feelings, at least in me)
So, I am interested on what's your take on metta and its relationship to the path to AF specifically and practically, because I see a lot of potential if this is used well. Do you think the same practice is useful as it is? Do you recommend some adjustments? Any tips? What do you do in particular and how it relates to AF?
Cheers!
Affective fabricated Metta is an antidote to the hindrances, just like felicity as a fabrication can do for an actualist. It can lead to a calmer, steady and clearer mind. When the calmer, steady and clearer mind is in place, then one can attend to cultivating recognition of
atammayata or what I consider to be the same as apperception. If affective metta is used without this notion of 'apperception' in mind as the main objective, then one can get trapped in the fabricating of conceit etc indefinitely. One has to fabricate the path. What do you think you are doing with felicity? Felicity still is conceitful at its core. All fabrications are. The metta that is free of affect, the metta that seems inherent in apperceptive awareness is fabrication free.
Your own 'self-narratives' are attracted to and motivated by the pure acualist practices and context, no? Stick with them. Don't bother with metta. What do you think being happy and harmless is anyway? Is there no good will within that? Don't mix if it causes the confusion that it seems to cause.
Stick with the AFT guidelines.
Though if the self-narratives are now attracted to 'metta' practice, then just keep in mind whatever fabrications lead to a calmer, malleable, pliant, steady and clearer mind are fabrications that can be used to get to the place where one can then simply attend to recognising apperception again and again. Apperception is key in all this. All the other practices that define the 'schools of thought' are practices that aim to lead one to this simple non-fashioning, non-fabricating, misery free awareness (apperception), where nothing is conceived, no 'objects', no 'subjects', but eveything functions perfectly fine, just without the whole 'you' overlay warping and colouring it all. If one keeps in mind that fabrications are fabrications and that one uses them as a means to an end, not as the end itself, then you will bypass the potential conceitful traps.