The most important aspect of practice for laypeople

I think the most important aspect of practice for laypeople concerned with spiritual achievement, as well as anyone concerned with doing anything with their lives, is consistency.

A few years ago I delved pretty heavy into Buddhist practice and found it very useful in doing the things that I wanted. For a few months I spent a lot of time practicing metta and mindfulness meditation, but eventually things started to spur out of control and lead to me dropping out of the path almost completely. I'm making this post to advise those who may be experiencing something similar in their practice, or who have experienced something similar.

Despite being established in a metta practice, I noticed that I was still experiencing a lot of malicious thoughts and feelings related to my circumstances at the time. I panicked and tried desperately to get rid of those feelings, which lead to accomplishing nothing. I got tired of the struggle and gave up on metta meditation altogether.

So my advice to those reading is to be aware that you will still have those malicious thoughts and feelings and that it's okay to have them. We have often been practicing maliciousness for the majority of our lives, so it's no mistake that they won't be let go of so easily. The most important thing in regards to those malicious thoughts and feelings is that you let them come and go like any other thought or feeling.

Let yourself experience whatever you experience while doing the things you care about. The important part of a metta practice is practicing the metta, not whether you feel or think certain things. Trying to control whether you experience those things will send you spiraling down an infinite hole of miserably trying and failing at controlling things out of your control.

So what is the alternative? When establishing a metta practice, there's no need to be concerned with whether you're the most saintly person alive or that you experience no negative emotions, but that you have a way that you can do it every day. Think about other practices in your life and how you got to be good at those things. If you're good at video games, you probably played them every day. You weren't concerned with bursting with effort into becoming a professional player, you just played it every day. If you're good at metta, it's probably because you put effort into it every day versus trying to be a Mother Theresa in a few weeks.

It can be especially confusing because with things like metta it can be easy to fall into the trap of "trying to get rid of the opposite." When we think about the skills we have regarding the things we enjoy, we probably didn't pursue them while being afraid that we'll be a bad video game player or a bad student or a bad tennis player.

So when adopting a metta practice, the most important thing is to find a way to do it every day that feels effortless. If that means you practice for 5 minutes a day, then great. I'm probably going to be doing the same thing. Eventually that 5 minutes will turn into 10 minutes. You'll get better and better at it. It'll take root in your being.

When we're pursuing metta, we can look at it as growing an apple true. At the start, it's just important that we water the sapling frequently. It doesn't matter whether it's bearing fruit or not, that comes later. So start watering the saplings of kindness today and with time you'll have some beautiful, tasty fruit!

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