การแผ่เมตตาต้องอาศัยสัจจะ (ความจริงใจ) เป็นฐาน โดยนึกถึงดวงจิตของมารดาที่มีต่อบุตรน้อยๆ ตั้งความปรารถนาดีอย่างจริงใจ แล้วขยายใจออกไปกว้างขวางไปเรื่อยๆ เมตตาธรรมจะส่องสว่างไปไกลเท่าที่ใจขยายไปถึงSending loving-kindness (metta) needs sincerity as its foundation — recalling a mother's love for her young child, forming that wish with genuine sincerity, then letting the mind expand outward without limit. Loving-kindness shines only as far as the mind reaches.
Someone asked the teacher: sending is said to be great merit, yet many people don't know how to do it properly. Could the teacher explain the right way to practice it?
The Foundation of Loving-Kindness
The teacher explained that loving-kindness is a wholesome quality that rests on the perfections of truthfulness and resolve. What supports it is sincerity — genuine truthfulness. The more sincere the heart, the higher the quality of the loving-kindness that arises.
A past teacher therefore advised: when cultivating loving-kindness, recall a mother's heart toward her young child — a heart of pure, sincere goodwill. When that sincere wish is set, brightness naturally arises in the mind and shows its qualities on its own.
From there, gradually let the heart expand — starting with yourself, then out to your household, your neighborhood, district, province, country, and eventually the whole cosmos. Because loving-kindness arises only in the mind and nowhere else, it shines exactly as far as the mind extends.
How Loving-Kindness Can Affect the Environment
Someone noted that research has shown loving-kindness can help plants flourish, and that a teacher's practice of it was said to have helped certain crops taste unusually good. Asked how this is possible, the teacher explained that every element — earth, water, air — has its own guardian spirit shaping its quality, on both and unwholesome sides. When someone with strong meditative power sends loving-kindness, the wholesome guardians of those elements gain strength and can improve the quality of soil, water, and air, so plants flourish and taste better as a result.
Fulfilled Blueprints and Taking Action
Someone followed up: after making a resolve, how does one obtain a "completed blueprint" the way past teachers left one for their students to simply carry out? The teacher explained that such a blueprint comes from a teacher having devoted themselves fully to that task until it succeeded. When we set our own intention to take on a duty, unwholesome forces will try to sap our resolve with voices insisting it's too hard. But the moment we decide to move forward without overthinking, merit flows in at once, and wiser, more powerful helpers step in to clear the obstacles.