Great tip on metta practice from Ajahn Jayasaro, "be specific"

I heard this on an old recorded Dhamma talk of his, not a quote, just a very rough inaccurate paraphrase of the gist of what he said.

For someone who's a terrible person, doing terrible things, no normal person would have a genuine wish for them to unconditionally be happy.

But if you're skillful in "being specific" about how you do metta, with practice you can do metta where you genuinely wish for their happiness.

A couple of examples:

1. May that person stop doing terrible things so he can enjoy the peace of mind that comes from that and be happy as a result.

2. May that person realize what he's doing is terrible and harmful, and from that realization have wisdom arise and happiness with it that follows.

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'Viveka', Sanskrit dictionary Primary meaning is ‘discrimination’. Other meanings: (1) true knowledge, (2) discretion, (3) right judgement, (4) the faculty of distinguishing and classifying things according to their real properties’. Wikipedia (sanskrit dictionary entry 'viveka') Viveka (Sanskrit: विवेक, romanized: viveka) is a Sanskrit and Pali term translated into English as discernment or discrimination.[1] According to Rao and Paranjpe, viveka can be explained more fully as: Sense of discrimination; wisdom; discrimination between the real and the unreal, between the self and the non-self, between the permanent and the impermanent; discriminative inquiry; right intuitive discrimination; ever present discrimination between the transient and the permanent.[2]: 348 The Vivekachudamani is an eighth-century Sanskrit poem in dialogue form that addresses the development of viveka. Within the Vedanta tradition, there is also a concept of vichara which is one t...

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