Someone recently expressed their concerns about translating the word “metta” as “love.” Metta is a Buddhist term commonly translated to “lovingkindness.” I used to translate metta as love, extensively so in the metta bhavana meditation guide on the Wildmind website. A revision on this is forthcoming.
Currently, I opt to translate metta as “kindness,” which is more accurate and less confusing. There are, after all, many different forms of love.
A reader commented, saying they don’t want to cultivate lovingkindness on top of habitual hostility, describing this as “sugary frosting” covering something unpleasant. They pointed out that this can create an emotional trap; if someone acts negatively toward them, their response can abruptly shift to aversion, leading to unpleasantness and possibly aggressive behaviors.
I found this comment insightful. It’s common to feel annoyed when you do something nice—like holding a door—and don’t get a thank you, or when your advice is dismissed. Personally, I get irritated if someone doesn’t immediately respond when I hand them something, feeling as if they’re rejecting me.
Often, we mistake being loving and compassionate for just “being nice.” Being nice is usually motivated by a desire to be liked, which makes us feel good. It’s transactional; we’re trading kindness for appreciation. But when we don’t get the appreciation we expect, it feels unpleasant, and our reaction might be aversive. We may then think the person doesn’t deserve our niceness and deserves our displeasure instead. This “niceness” is the “sugary frosting” over our deeper, habitual hostility.
This idea of being nice aligns with what the Buddha referred to as “pema,” translated as “love” or “affection.” Pema is conditional. The Buddha explained, love (pema) occurs when someone cares for another, and others treat that person with care, leading us to like those others. However, if those others dislike the person we care for, we might end up disliking them.
This conditional love can trap us. We might think we deserve admiration and appreciation and act in ways to elicit these responses. When we don’t get the expected response, we turn against others.
True kindness, or metta, is different. It’s based on empathy, recognizing that another person’s feelings are as valid as our own. This understanding naturally prevents us from wanting to cause them suffering and prompts us to support their well-being. Our words and actions will reflect our concern for their happiness. If they act adversely toward us, we don’t seek to punish them; we still wish for their well-being.
Genuine kindness is unconditional and depends on recognizing that others, like us, prefer to be happy and avoid suffering.
Many people say, “I’m good at loving others, but I hate myself.” Usually, the “love” they show is pema—they seek others’ appreciation because they lack self-love. Even if others show affection, it doesn’t compensate for their self-loathing. You can’t achieve self-acceptance by being nice to others and expecting appreciation in return.
If others aren’t appreciative enough, you might get annoyed with them and even more critical of yourself, seeing it as a sign of personal deficiency.
I found that I could only start empathizing with others once I empathized with myself. By acknowledging my own experiences as a feeling being, I began to appreciate others’ experiences. This realization led me to true empathy-based kindness and compassion, not just niceness.
Not everyone’s experience might align with this, but it might resonate with you too.
One might ask why I believe people prefer happiness to suffering. Any tendency to cling to suffering usually stems from one of two reasons:
1. Not understanding how suffering arises, leading to its unintentional creation out of ignorance.
2. Adopting suffering as a strategy, believing that enduring it might eventually lead to happiness, such as expecting someone to rescue us from our misery.
Ultimately, suffering is never our goal.