UnMind 38. Metta Sutta Quartet 2: May All Beings Be

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May all be happy —
What kind of cruel joke is that?
This is Samsara!

The second section of the Metta Sutta begins to articulate the meaning of loving kindness in terms of all beings, rather than just human beings, and the potential accomplishments in improved character and function that will flow from their putting into practice the list of seven admonitions in the first section. Isn’t it enough that all beings already exist — must they all be happy as well?

If this poem were a song, this second stanza would comprise the refrain, or the bridge, between the other verses, as it does in my musical setting of this lovely, lilting lyric:

May all beings be happy
May they be joyous and live in safety
All living beings whether weak or strong
In high or middle or low realms of existence
Small or great visible or invisible
Near or far born or to be born
May all beings be happy

“May all beings be happy” comprises the earnest, naively innocent, almost prayer-like refrain, capturing the overall hopefulness and optimism of this small sutra. It also may be the first instance on record of the definition of Buddhist community, or sangha, as all-inclusive, embracing all sentient beings. This is in keeping with the first of the Five Grave Precepts, to affirm life, and avoid killing.

But we should be careful to note that Buddha was no Panglossian, best-of-all-possible-worlds, naive dreamer. By promoting the notion that all beings should be happy, he did not mean in some unrealistic, mythical way, or a world in which there is no sickness, aging and death, the cardinal marks of dukkha, or suffering, as it is loosely translated. Loosely, in that mere unsatisfactoriness on the human level does not begin to capture the import and implications of change on a universal level. It is this relentless, primordial change that fuels existence, and we suffer change in our lives, but there is no such existence without change, in spite of optimistic visions of a heavenly afterlife. In this, Buddhism is not pessimistic, nor overly optimistic, but simply realistic.

So when Buddha holds out the hope that all beings be happy, it is with the understanding that they be happy with things the way they are, not suggesting that merely saying so will bring about a world without suffering.

“May they be joyous and live in safety” seemingly belies this idea, however, notwithstanding that the original Pali might not precisely mean “safety” in the sense that we may interpret it. All beings, after all, will suffer aging, sickness and death. Most will be subject to a violent death at that, at the hands, claws and fangs, of their respective predators in the food chain. So safety, if that was Buddha’s intended meaning, must in some wise not be limited to protecting beings from the ravages of time and circumstance. In fact, safety must include dying, even being killed and eaten, and whatever comes after death, in some overview of reality. In one of the Jataka tales, which were said to relate stories of Buddha’s prior existences — always emphasizing some sort of moral — he offered his body up to be devoured by a starving tigress, in order that she be able to survive, and feed her undernourished cubs. Buddha must have felt safe in death, as well as in life. But there can be no safety from death.

“All living beings, whether weak or strong” may differentiate those weaklings who are already suffering aging and sickness from those who are not, the strong, in the natural order of things, from the least capable of protecting themselves to the most invulnerable to predation. Some species may have no natural enemy in the form of a predator, and so are at the top of their respective food chains. With the exception of humankind, that is, who may hunt them down and kill them as a trophy, rather than as subsistence for survival.

“In high or middle or low realms of existence,” together with the next two lines, reflect the inchoate biology of the times, further elucidated in the “Twelve Classes of Beings” section of the Surangama Sutra. What is meant by high, low and middle may be subject to some speculation, but I suspect that it would correlate roughly to the food chain, with strong and independent species such as elephants and the big cats at the top, livestock, domesticated animals, and other forms of wildlife in the middle, with rodents and insects at the lowest level then known to exist. It is doubtful that the spectrum of the living would include the bacteria and viruses known to us today, to our dismay, were known at the time of Buddha, though such creatures as tapeworms were, being mentioned in the Surangama.

“Small or great, visible or invisible” is another summarizing statement of inclusion, from the smallest flea or mosquito to the largest pachyderm, so prominent in India. Whether invisible simply refers to those who are not obviously evident, but somehow hidden in their natural habitats and hideaways, or indicates a reference to a knowledge of life-forms so small as to be invisible, like mites on the fleas, or even an intuitive grasp of microscopic life, is another speculation perhaps resolvable by scholars of the scientific thinking and models of the time.

“Near or far, born or to be born” may similarly indicate an intuitive grasp of the existence of other countries and even vast continents with their differing denizens of the animal kingdom, and some indication that the period of gestation, differing stages of live such as pupae and larvae, et cetera, are all covered in the warm embrace of this wish for universal happiness. That those yet to be born get a special mention suggests that the prior mention of those invisible to the naked eye do not include those still in the womb.

“May all beings be happy” is repeated to close this verse, which suggests that it may have been repeated more than once in the original recitation, as was characteristic of most sutras in the oral tradition, before they were committed to writing. The repeat stanzas give everyone a chance to catch up, and to prepare for the next stanza, where the content is going to change. Memorizing these teachings so that you do not have to refer to the printed page gives an insight into this ancient method of propagating the Buddha’s wisdom. You could do worse than to try it for yourself.