Talking with my dad on the phone about tantra, theravada, and love with my girlfriend.  He says "she has the same self-sense that you have, the same self-interest, but not in an unskillfull or bad way."  I practice the Theravada: the skillful arrangement of fabrications to move towards the unfabricated, and the use of the freedom and space created by contact with the unfabricated to skillfully fabricate.  So, these two have a reflexive relationship: I work with my attention and motivating emotions (as well as ethical conduct, to some degree), to stimulate fruitions and path attainments.  This contact with nothingness then helps me work with attention, motivating emotions, and eventually, a greater control of my behaviors, impulses, ability to help others, etc.

So there's that, and in that context, it feels like my relationship is good as long as it is conducive to her long term happiness and my long term hapiness: our mutual well-being and functioning.  But then there is this deeper level, where I can feel the possibility of just accepting her, as she is, in a more integral or authentic way.  Meaning, regardless of what she does, even if she cheats on me or makes mistakes in life (as we all do), I love her and wish her the best always.  Even if she is not mine, I can feel a sense of sentimental appreciation in my body as my heart chakra opens to her reality.  

At the deepest level, what I'm saying is that this is not personal.  In some sense, the Theravada ramifications make it personal... meaning, how can we skillfuly manipulate (or let go of), our specific circumstances for everyone's mutual benefit and ultimate freedom?  The tantric ramification is impersonal... at the deepest levels, we can already forgive ourselves and everybody else for every mistake we have ever made, and will make in the future.  We can have an appreciation for the integral, total, complete, authentic nature of reality, in all of its perplexing cause and effect.  The human experience is special because we all have this sense of ourselves and we wish the best for ourselves and want to be happy.  There is a power in this personalness and in the recognition of it that facilitates a subtler and deeper letting go.  

This power is a very specific type of energy, the energy of sentience.  This energy is unique and awesome.  When I have emotional blockages, phobias, obsessive lines of thought, compulsive actions, avoidance behaviors, etc., these things are all manifestations of the incredible intensity of the human spirit.  What are the pragmatic ramifications for recognizing this?

The pragmatic bottom line here is that I wish to develop an intrapersonal resonance (the same way I feel an interpersonal one with my girlfriend) with myself.  How can I realize a deeper acceptance for Noah?  How can I feel, in body, that this bipolar disorder is not my fault, that I forgive myself, that this bipolar disorder is actually a form of sacred enlightened energy?  How can I release myself into this void, this endless space?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsQsOjaVUuA

If you can't accept the way you are, you can't except the world the way it is. If you can't forgive yourself, you can't truly forgive anyone else.

Metta starts with the self.

Has metta changed your life/outlook/baseline?  Did it happen through intentional practice, natural maturation, other life events, etc?

Yes it has changed my life/outlook/baseline. It happened through intentional metta practice as well as the insight gained through meditation.

Metta often starts with self but it does not have to start with self. Just start. If someone has difficulty with metta toward themselves then they can start with focusing on others to begin with, toward people not alive today can work too e.g. Buddha. 

I struggled with the metta meditation starting with myself, it felt inauthentic and forced. It could be compared to positive affirmations in some ways and those work for some people and not for others.

Things are not so black and white. While it is true you can't accept everything in the world without accepting yourself you can accept many things and that is good practise for accepting yourself. I do think you can forgive people too, it is a very long road to 100% self acceptance so don't let that delay using metta toward others ASAP.

Change A approach worked for Change A and other approaches have worked to some extent for me. You can experiment with metta like any other practise to find what works and it will evolve over time. 

Change A do you mean the insight you gained through vipassana meditation or the insight you gained through doing metta meditation?

I meant insight gained through vipassana meditation.

Thanks for the honesty, Change A.  Testimonies to the real, permanent effects of meditation are very inspiring for me.  I think metta is a very deep rabit hole whose entryway I haven't even uncovered.  I am excited to explore it in the future, when my mind is a little more quiet.

I can fully recommend formal metta practice as I do think it has changed my outlook on life. I have become much kinder to myself, much more able to accept myself as I am, less critical and demanding on myself and therefore experiencing much more freedom in my day-to-day actions. What has worked best for me is - when I have access to that feeling, which isn´t always the case - to no not just recite the traditional metta wishes to self, others etc. but try to experience a feeling of loving kindness and compassion in my heart, which I can then extend to myself and others. The formal metta wishes can then serve as a way to stabilize and strengthen that experience. By somehow linking the sentences to that feeling, I am by now quite often able to evoke that "metta feeling" for myself in difficult situations by innerly reciting the traditional phrases. Makes life a lot easier and nicer. In my experience the practice automatically spills over to day-to-day life...

I had stumbled upon that "metta" experience by trying out a guided metta meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn once, which initially worked extremely well for me to practice what I describe above. I sometimes still follow it, although by now I think he talks far too much during the 45 minutes...

Great, thanks for the reply.  Did you practice metta systematically?  Meaning did you start with yourself as the object, then go to a well-liked other, than nuetral other, etc?  Also, did you then do this practice with the other Brahma Viharas in this order?  I'm curious about how it is usually taught and enacted in more formal settings, and also about what has worked for people.

Hi Noah
I practiced metta maybe about once weekly for a while and always used that guided meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn at that time (which was all I had, as it was before I had any knowledge on the Buddhist context and how metta meditaiton is practiced traditionally). The order was slightly adjusted, it started with remembering or imagining somebody loving yourself unconditionally and then transferring that feeling to a situation where one is both the giver and receiver of that feeling. Afterwards it followed more or less the traditional order, i.e. to a close person, a neutral person, a difficult person, everybody. Personally, starting with imagining that feeling of unconditional love had worked very well for me in the sense of creating a physical experience of the emotion rather than just the intent of wishing well.
I haven´t done any more regular and systematic practice on that, although I think it would be very beneficial, so I do plan to do that at some point...

Cool, I think that physical feeling is probably the only thing that matters.  I always wonder if there are trackable stages of metta, although probably not.  I feel like I think of metta right not in a very rigid, simplified, dualistic way, but when I finally get down to it, all the subtleties will reveal themselves.