Metta Quotes

“Like a caring mother
holding and guarding the life
of her only child,
so with a boundless heart
of lovingkindness,
hold yourself and all beings
as your beloved children.”
― Gautama Buddha

“This love meditation is adapted from the Visuddhimagga by Buddhaghosa, a 5th century C.E. systematization of the Buddha's teaching. We begin by practicing the love meditation on ourselves ("May I"). Until we are able to love and take care of ourselves, we cannot be much help to others. After that, we practice them on others ("May he/she/they") - first on someone we like, then on someone neutral to us, and finally on someone who makes us suffer.

May I be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit.
May I be safe and free from injury.
May I be free from anger, afflictions, fear and anxiety.

May I learn to look at myself with the eyes of of understanding and love.
May I be able to recognize and touch the seeds of joy and happiness in myself.
May I learn to identify and see the sources of anger, craving, and delusion in myself.

May I know how to nourish the seeds of joy in myself every day.
May I be able to live fresh, solid, and free.
May I be free from attachment and aversion, but not indifferent.

Love is not just the intention to love, but the capacity to reduce suffering, and offer peace and happiness. The practice of love increases our forbearance, our capacity to be patient and embrace difficulties and pain. Forbearance does mean that we try to suppress pain.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh

“Love creates a communion with life. Love expands us, connects us, sweetens us, ennobles us.

Love springs up in tender concern, it blossoms into caring action. It makes beauty out of all we touch. In any moment we can step beyond our small self and embrace each other as beloved parts of a whole.”
― Jack Kornfield, The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace

“Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, 'You idiot! What's wrong with you? Are you blind?' But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind. He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: 'Are you hurt? Can I help you up?' Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.”
― B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up: A Practical Approach for Modern Life

“With attachment all that seems to exist is just me & that object I desire.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

“The highest goodness is like water.
Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao. The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and strong nothing proves better than water. For there is no alternative to it. The weak can overcome and the yielding can overcame the hard. This all the world knows but does not practice. This again is the practice of ‘wu-wel’ and nonviolence. Water may be weak, pliable, fluid, but its action is not one of running away from an obstacle. On the contrary, it gives at the point of resistance, envelopes the object and passes beyond it. Ultimately it will wear down the hardest rock. Water is a more telling symbol than land… crossing the river to get to the other side is, again, attaining the state of enlightenment.”
― J.C. Cooper

“With mindfulness, loving kindness, and self-compassion, we can begin to let go of our expectations about how life and those we love should be.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“However, maitri is not just being kind and nice. It is the understanding that one has to become one with the situation. That does not particularly mean that one becomes entirely without personality and has to accept whatever the other person suggests. Rather, you have to overcome the barrier that you have formed between yourself and others. If you remove this barrier and open yourself, then automatically real understanding and clarity will develop in your mind.”
― Chögyam Trungpa, Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery

“We love them those who shown their care to us, We Love them who respect us. We Love them, who help us. But if we don't give all these to them how will they love us, how will they care us.
Lets start loving people, respect people, protect them. Help people if need”
― Suman Jyoty Bhante

“Metta can only be founded in its most sympathetic and authentic form when it comes from the most humble and truest of intentions.”
― Amy Leigh Mercree, A Little Bit of Meditation: An Introduction to Focus

“There is a plurality to our being: We are one heart with many parts. We are one psyche holding
many minds and many psychologies. This opens doors, and they are doors that urgently need
opening... while we are not responsible for the conditioning that’s brought us where
we are now, we are indeed accountable for what we do with it.”
― Ralph De La Rosa

“Over time, Mettā builds a bridge between parts of yourself that grief scattered.
It says: You are not broken for still hurting.
You are not selfish for loving again.
You are not alone.”
― G. Scott Graham, Come As You Are: Five Years Later

“Mettā is like water softening dry ground. It takes time. What matters is your intention — the quiet willingness to offer care, even imperfectly.
________________________________________
You don’t have to feel loving to practice loving-kindness.
You just have to show up.”
― G. Scott Graham, Come As You Are: Five Years Later

“Concepts such as loving kindness should never be used as weapons against our real feelings.”
― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“I try to treat whoever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“He clearly sensed the pity and protective compassion of the Alien standing
across the dark room. It saw him, not with eyes, as short-lived, fleshly, armorless, a
strange creature, infinitely vulnerable, adrift in the gulfs of the possible: something that
needed help. He didn't mind. He did need help.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“He clearly sensed the pity and protective compassion of the Alien standing across the dark room. It saw him, not with eyes, as short-lived, fleshly, armorless, a strange creature, infinitely vulnerable, adrift in the gulfs of the possible: something that needed help. He didn't mind. He did need help.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven