metta – A Year to Live

I don’t have a bucket list… unless, maybe… to be kinder. Yes, that would be better than a trip to Kakadu, or Dharamsala. A kinder heart, of course, depends on seeing deeply into how things are, and understanding our common humanity. So, there’s a chance, even if I die tonight.

I’d like to share a passage, which I was reading today, from a collection of early Buddhist suttas called the Itivuttaka. The Itivullaka has an interesting story behind it. It is said to be a collection of teachings recorded by a woman, which is unusual in all of Buddhist history, let alone for that early period. Her name was Khujjuttara, and she was a servant of one of the queens of King Udena of Kosambi.

Since the queen couldn’t go to hear the Buddha teach, she sent Khujjuttara, who listened and understood so well that she was able to memorize the teachings, and subsequently shared them with the queen and her women attendants.

These verses are from a sutta called The Development of Loving-Kindness. The translation is John Ireland’s, from his book Itivuttaka: Buddha’s Sayings (1991).

For one who mindfully develops
Boundless loving-kindness
Seeing the destruction of clinging,
The fetters are worn away.

If with an uncorrupted mind
He pervades just one being
With loving kindly thoughts,
He makes some merit thereby.

But a noble one produces
An abundance of merit
By having a compassionate mind
Towards all living beings.

Those royal seers who conquered
The earth crowded with beings
Went about performing sacrifices:
The horse sacrifice, the man sacrifice,
The water rites, the soma sacrifice,
And that called “the Unobstructed.”

But these do not share even a sixteenth part
Of a well cultivated mind of love,
Just as the entire starry host
Is dimmed by the moon’s radiance.

One who does not kill
Nor cause others to kill,
Who does not conquer
Nor cause others to conquer,
Kindly towards all beings —
He has enmity for none.

I am lying on a gurney. I have on only the gown for the operating theatre. I am prone in an ante-room, with a white ceiling filling my visual field. I am there a long time; about half an hour. I am waiting for them to put me under and open me up, to extract an afflicted organ. ‘Extract’ is the right word: ‘To take from something of which the thing taken was a part.’ He needs to be precise. I know I am breathing. I send metta to all, combined with the loka practice. That is, I send metta to: all above, all below, all to the north, all to the south, all to the west, all to the east. And, then I add, “And in the middle. May I be happy, safe and well.” Sending metta, the loka opens up its boundaries. Immeasurable space.

I think, “The chances of dying are only seven in one million, but that’s a possibility.” I can’t know that I won’t die in the next hour or two. It seems to me that I would still do metta, even if I knew that I would certainly die in the next hour or two. What else would be worth it, at this hour? It’s bliss. I continue to track my breathing.

I remember the last time that I had a general anaesthetic. I am hoping for the same experience, because it was so interesting. I was mindful as I went into the theatre. I was mindful as they put me on the table. I was mindful when I came out of the anaesthetic, and I knew instantly that I had been present all during the operation. I don’t mean on the surface – aware of the operation, no – aware of the silence of the mind. It was a thread of presence all the way through. That was special. I felt such a sense of awe that I didn’t care that I had survived the anaesthetic.

But, excuse me. I’ve moved away from what I wanted to say. I’ve giving you an example of loka. Lying on the gurney, my lived world is vibrantly alive with luminous space. A white, hospital, cork ceiling could appear boring, but the space isn’t impeded by the limits of my ageing eyes. The space has no limit. Nothing can be boring, when it is the manifestation of the unbounded awareness. My breathing is doing itself. I am feeling so alive. And the space is undivided. It has no centre and no periphery. How could space have a centre?

I can hear the rock and roll in the operating theatre. Yes, rock and roll. I think how last time he operated on me, he asked me what music I preferred. He asked me in the theatre, and I didn’t have much time to think, so I said Bach. What I heard as the sensory world dissolved was Bach’s Mass. I smile at this. This time I was ready and had told him I wanted Mozart piano sonatas. I might die. The ceiling looks beautiful. Breathing in, breathing out. May all beings be happy.

It didn’t happen this time, that thread thing. It was different. I wonder if no two deaths are alike.

Everfresh in the Changing

Tag: metta

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