พระอาจารย์ขยายความโอวาทหลวงปู่ว่าแก่นแท้ของเมตตาธรรมคือความรู้สึกของมารดาที่มีต่อบุตรน้อยของตน ให้นำความรู้สึกนี้มาแผ่ไปยังสรรพสัตว์ทั้งหลายเสมือนเป็นลูกของตนเอง ซึ่งจะให้อานิสงส์ใหญ่ยิ่งกว่าการให้ทานเสียอีกPra Ajarn expands on the teacher's teaching that the true essence of loving-kindness (mettā) is the feeling a mother has for her own newborn child — take that feeling and extend it to all beings as though they were your own children. This, he says, carries greater merit than even giving alms.
Someone asked Pra Ajarn to expand on the teaching about as a divine abiding ( brahmavihāra) — to remember the "taste" of the heart overflowing with tenderness for the child born of one's own body, and to take that same heart and extend it to others as though they too were one's own children.
The True Essence of Mettā Is a Mother's Love for Her Child
Pra Ajarn explains that most people know loving-kindness only from the written word — reciting a memorized verse of well-wishing — without ever knowing what its true nature actually feels like. The teacher pointed straight at the essence: the feeling a mother has for her own newborn child, the most profound goodwill a human being can hold. Only someone who has been a parent truly understands this feeling. We're meant to remember it and extend it to everyone as though they were our own child — because the Buddha himself once said that across the long span of samsara, there is no one who hasn't, at some point, been our parent, sibling, or child.
Practicing Until the Heart Is Steeped in Goodwill
Pra Ajarn explains that continuously dwelling in this feeling is called a "divine abiding" — a quality that becomes home for the heart. It must be practiced over and over until this feeling becomes second nature. This wholesome state draws in the pure energy called merit, which flows in to purify body, speech, and mind further and further. At first, one tastes the flavor of goodwill itself; then the flavor of the that follows; then arises, developing in turn into one-pointedness and equanimity.
A Merit Greater Than Giving Alms
Pra Ajarn explains that true love and goodwill require sincerity — not just the words "I love you" without the feeling behind them. If we sincerely extend loving-kindness with the same heart a mother holds for her own child, the merit generated — even in the span of a single finger-snap — outweighs the merit of giving alms continuously for seven days and seven nights, as recorded in the Tipitaka. This is because a mother's love and goodwill for her own child is the greatest of all — great enough that a mother would give her own life for it.