In contrast to one correct way to interpret this passage, as I detail here:
Sujato claims that the simile in the metta sutta, where the mother "protects" (rakkhati) the child
really should be "preserve" (rakkhati).
Sujato's translation of the mother simile
Mātā yathā niyaṃ puttam āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe;
Just as a mother would preserve with [her] life [her] own child, [her] only child,
Evampi sabbabhūtesu mānasaṃ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ.
so too [one] should develop a limitless heart for all creatures.
What does it mean to "preserve your child"? It's a really awkward and unclear expression.
You going to turn your child into jam (preserve)?
You want to preserve your child from getting moldy or spoiled?
The mother obviously needs to "protect" the child, not "preserve" it. Even if you want to say "preserve", you're preserving the child's life, not preserving the child's fear, or preserving the child's bad habits, etc.
And what's a more concise way of saying "preserve a child's life"?
You got it. "Protect" (rakkhati).
Sujato even uses "protect", not "preserve", on this all important passage that occurs much more frequently than the other passages where he claims 'anu-rakkhati' means 'preserves' (such as anu-rakkhati of a samādhi nimitta).
AN 4.41 right effort of restraint, guarding the sense doors,
Katamañca, bhikkhave, saṃvarappadhānaṃ? | And what, monks, is the effort to restrain? |
Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu cakkhunā rūpaṃ disvā na nimittaggāhī hoti nānubyañjanaggāhī. | When a monk sees a sight with their eyes, they don’t get caught up in the features and details. |
Yatvādhikaraṇamenaṃ cakkhundriyaṃ asaṃvutaṃ viharantaṃ abhijjhādomanassā pāpakā akusalā dhammā anvāssaveyyuṃ, tassa saṃvarāya paṭipajjati, rakkhati cakkhundriyaṃ, cakkhundriye saṃvaraṃ āpajjati. | If the faculty of sight were left unrestrained, bad unskillful Dharmas of desire and aversion would become overwhelming. For this reason, they practice restraint, protecting the faculty of sight, and achieving its restraint. |
Sotena saddaṃ sutvā … | When they hear a sound with their ears … |
But even if you were to "protect" a samādhi nimitta instead of "preserve" a samādhi nimitta, the resulting meditation instruction does not make much of a difference.
Whereas "preserving a child" doesn't make much sense, and leaves unanswered and ambiguous what aspect of the child we're preserving.
And in the all important guarding of the 6 sense doors, the passages relating to that occur much more frequently than the passage on protecting the samādhi nimitta.
Most importantly, "preserving" the 6 sense doors instead of 'protecting' the six sense doors leads to allowing defilements in to be 'preserved' instead of protecting us from them.
Why is Sujato having us jump through these convoluted hoops?
He's trying to shift the meaning of the child mother simile from the mother protecting the child paralleled with the meditator developing & [protecting] the unlimited heart [for the sake of all creatures]
to:
Mātā yathā niyaṃ puttam āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe;
Just as a mother would preserve ... [her] only child,
Evampi sabbabhūtesu mānasaṃ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ.
so too [one] should develop a limitless heart for all creatures.
In other words, he's using sophistry to shift the meaning from protection of one's metta, to developing one's metta for all creatures, which is a large shift in the scope of responsibility and meaning of what the meditator is trying to accomplish.
His justification? That rakkhati is "preserve", not "protect", which has been shown above to be invalid, and not only that, even if we assume it's valid, it results in "preserve the child" which is awkward and ambiguous in meaning.
Sophistry tactic #2
The Buddha's instruction says the mother protects the child.
It doesn't say the mother sends metta to the child.
By trying to shift the rakkhati meaning from 'protect' to 'preserve', Sujato is trying to shift the meaning of the Buddha from
- the mother protecting something that is the most valuble thing in the world to her, to
- the mother is preserving love for her child
Again, it's actually helpful to read the Buddha's words.
The Buddha doesn't say the mother sends metta to the child.
and he doesn't say we should focus on speculative reasons on why the mother is "preserving her child".
Sujato says, the mother would protect her child because of love of her child, therefore the metaphor should be to contrast the mother's love for her child, with the meditators unlimited heart towards all beings.
Sophistry tactic #3
Combined with shifting the meaning from rakkhati "protect" to "preserve", and then using unwarranted speculation to say that it must be because the mother has "love" for her child, Sujato then uses a license that metaphors don't always have perfect parallel matching, and he uses all 3 sophistry tactics combined to then claim that the metaphor parallel should be between mother preserving love for her child, to meditator preserving "love" for all beings in the world.
Another invalid line of reasoning from Sujato
He claims that since the rest of the sutta frequently instructs us to "send metta to all beings in the entire world", that the metaphor of the mother & child simile should also be including that instruction implicitly.
That's purely speculative.
One could just as easily make the argument that, since the Buddha already instructs, "sending metta to all beings in the entire world",
that the mother child simile is meant to not be redundant and repetitive, but instead to point out another very important thing we need to do, that the rest of the sutta doesn't instruct.
That point is,
we should develop, value and protect our mind of metta and other skillful qualities, and guard it with our life.
Which is exactly what the mother is doing, going by the Buddha's exact words, guarding the child as if it's the most important thing in the world to her that she would guard with her life.
This important point is also made in the acrobat sutta,
Atha kho, bhikkhave, caṇḍālavaṃsiko medakathālikaṃ antevāsiṃ etadavoca: | Then the acrobat said to Medakathālikā: |
‘tvaṃ, samma medakathālike, mamaṃ rakkha, ahaṃ taṃ rakkhissāmi. | ‘You look after me, dear Medakathālikā, and I’ll look after you. |
Evaṃ mayaṃ aññamaññaṃ guttā aññamaññaṃ rakkhitā sippāni ceva dassessāma, lābhañca lacchāma, sotthinā ca caṇḍālavaṃsā orohissāmā’ti. | That’s how, guarding and looking after each other, we’ll display our skill, collect our fee, and get down safely from the bamboo pole.’ |
Evaṃ vutte, bhikkhave, medakathālikā antevāsī caṇḍālavaṃsikaṃ etadavoca: | When he said this, Medakathālikā said to her teacher: |
‘na kho panetaṃ, ācariya, evaṃ bhavissati. | ‘That’s not how it is, teacher! |
Tvaṃ, ācariya, attānaṃ rakkha, ahaṃ attānaṃ rakkhissāmi. | You should look after yourself, and I’ll look after myself. |
...
Kathañca, bhikkhave, attānaṃ rakkhanto paraṃ rakkhati? | And how do you look after others by protecting yourself? |
Āsevanāya, bhāvanāya, bahulīkammena— | By development, cultivation, and practice of meditation. |
evaṃ kho, bhikkhave, attānaṃ rakkhanto paraṃ rakkhati. | |
Kathañca, bhikkhave, paraṃ rakkhanto attānaṃ rakkhati? | And how do you look after yourself by looking after others? |
Khantiyā, avihiṃsāya, mettacittatāya, anudayatāya— | By acceptance, harmlessness, friendliness, and kindness. |
evaṃ kho, bhikkhave, paraṃ rakkhanto attānaṃ rakkhati. | |
Attānaṃ, bhikkhave, rakkhissāmīti satipaṭṭhānaṃ sevitabbaṃ; | Thinking ‘I’ll look after myself,’ you should cultivate rememberfulness meditation. |
paraṃ rakkhissāmīti satipaṭṭhānaṃ sevitabbaṃ. | Thinking ‘I’ll look after others,’ you should cultivate rememberfulness meditation. |
Attānaṃ, bhikkhave, rakkhanto paraṃ rakkhati, paraṃ rakkhanto attānaṃ rakkhatī”ti. | Looking after yourself, you look after others; and looking after others, you look after yourself.” |
The acrobat sutta even uses the same words as the mother/son simile parallel with the development of unlimited heart: rakkha (protect), and Bhāva (develop, cultivate)
mother son simile in metta sutta:
Mātā yathā niyaṁ puttam | Even as a mother would protect her own child, |
Āyusā eka-puttam-anu-rakkhe; | her only child, at the risk of her own life, |
Evam-pi sabba-bhūtesu, | so too towards all creatures [, for their safety and happiness, ] |
Mānasaṁ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṁ. | [You] should develop [and protect your] unlimited heart. |
Conclusion:
1. rakkhati here is 'protect', not 'preserve'. This is especially clear in the right effort guarding of the sense doors passage. To "preserve" the eye (and six senses) faculty completely breaks the meaning. You're "protecting" those sense faculties against evil and unskillful Dharmas, not "preserving sense faculties". Preserving their evil and deluded state?
2. Another sign of potential sophistry, besides using invalid shifting of meaning in words, is when you read their arguments many times, jumping through their convoluted loops of reasoning, and you still have a hard time figuring out what the author is saying, figuring out how that supposed evidence actually proves their point.
3. While it's true metaphors aren't perfect, and there are cases where we should explore alternate ways to interpret them differently than the standard ways, there's no justification here to support Sujato's interpretation.
Note that in his full article he doesn't even try to show why a correct interpretation of the simile, such as this one doesn't work.
To justify using an unusual way to interpret a metaphor, you first have to show how the usual way fails.
He doesn't even try.
Instead, he uses a straw man argument to try to discredit Thanissaro's interpretation of the simile (which is nearly identical to the one I outline in linked article above).
Not only that, Sujato builds his strawman argument in the most disingenuous way. He accuses Thanissaro of using a straw man argument, which hinges on a tangential non-essential point, without even acknowledging what Thanissaro's main points of the simile are, and why Sujato's simile interpretation is better than Thanissaro's.
4. Notice the acrobat sutta, which is counterintuitive, exactly matches the correct interpretation of the metta sutta mother simile, which also has a counterintuitive parallel on superficial reading of mother protecting son, and meditator developing mind.
What's counterintuitive about the acrobat, is that we'd think the emphasis is to direct our metta towards all beings as the primary focus of satipatthana.
But instead, the priority is we should first focus on oneself, the purity of our mind, our own bhāva [development, meditation].
And in that way, our pure mind naturally also protects all others.
Similary, the metta sutta mother son simile also is making the same point that we should focus on our own mind first, and in that way we protect all others as well.
snapshot of Sujato's full article on mother's simile from metta sutta
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/mother-and-child-simile-mata-yatha-niya-putta-mayusa-ekaputtamanurakkhe/16782/3
Ahh Theravadins; they’re so triggered by emotions.
Well, first thing is that the Pali text on SC has this rather embarrassing mistake in these lines. It should be:
Mātā yathā niyaṃputtam
āyusā ekaputtamanurakkhe;
It is caused by the way the MS editors created the line breaks. In the source VRI edition it is correct, they have niyaṁ puttamāyusā. Worse, the MS editors added punctuation, which does not belong here at all, and they did so inconsistently, using comma in kp9 and dash in
snp1.8.
As a strict policy, we do not make any changes to the Pali readings and text of our edition. However, we do sometimes make adjustments to punctuation, word breaks, and the like, and I think this is justified here. Here is the change.
github.com/suttacentral/bilara-dataCorrect improper line break in Pali text of Metta Sutta 6committed Jul 21, 2020
sujato+4 -4On to the question! Here is a literal translation. I join the lines together, as it is impossible to translate keeping track with the half-lines in the MS edition.
Mātā yathā niyaṃ puttam āyusā ekaputtam anurakkhe;
Just as a mother would preserve with [her] life [her] own child, [her] only child,
Evampi sabbabhūtesu mānasaṃ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ.
so too [one] should develop a limitless heart for all creatures.
Mettañca sabbalokasmi mānasaṃ bhāvaye aparimāṇaṃ;
And [one] should develop a limitless heart of love for the whole world,
Uddhaṃ adho ca tiriyañca asambādhaṃ averamasapattaṃ.
above, below, and all around, unconstricted, free of hatred and enmity.
Just a few points of detail first.Mānasa is an unusual poetic term equivalent to citta or ceto. Here it clearly plays the same role normally played by ceto in phrases like appamāṇā cetovimutti.
The e ending in anurakkhe and bhāvaye is a poetic variant of the third person singular optative, more commonly encountered as eyya. The sense of this ending can be either “would” or “should”, and in translation I have varied it to suit the sense.
Anurakkha = anu (along) + rakkha (protect), but it is almost always used, not in the sense of “guard” like protecting against an enemy, but “preserve” in the sense of keeping something alive and present. In this sense, it is one of the four right efforts, the effort to “preserve” good qualities.
Now as to interpretation. This is, of course, a sutta on metta, and it is all about developing metta, both through one’s actions and through meditation. At this point in the sutta, we are moving from the part on the practice of meditation to the section on the metta heart’s release, i.e. jhana based on metta. And that is explicitly what the language of “limitless” refers to.
In literary analysis, we must distinguish between the direct statement and the metaphor. In the suttas, metaphors are not used to expand the meanings of direct statements, but to illustrate them. The overriding aim of the suttas is clarity of meaning. Normally the direct statements are in themselves perfectly clear, and the metaphor merely serves to reinforce and illuminate. This is sometimes obscured a little in verse, where the requirements of meter and the creativity of the poetic impulse pushes metaphors in less obvious directions. However, even there, this principle usually applies, it is just stretched a little.
So in this case, the direct statements are quite clear, even if couched in slightly unusual poetic terms. The meditator is encouraged to develop (bhāveti) a limitless heart of love; i.e. to make their metta grow, to make it become more, until it transcends any limitations. The direct statements in the verse are fully explicit and clear on this point, and they do not say that one should “protect” one’s mind of loving kindness.
To illustrate this point, the metaphor of the mother protecting her child is introduced. The “only child” is grammatically in the same case (accusative) as the “limitless mind”, that much is true; but they are governed by different verbs. The mother “protects” her child, the meditator “develops” their mind. As always, it would be a mistake to read the metaphor as changing the meaning of a clear direct statement.
It should go without saying—this being poetry and all—that the mother protects her child because of her love. Obviously the metaphor is pointing to a connection between the mother’s love and the love developed by the meditator. Equally obviously, a metaphor is only a metaphor, and a mother’s love is still limited to her child. But it is still the best example of worldly love that there is.
In the linked passage, Ven Thanissaro is quoted as saying:
It’s sometimes understood as saying that we should be willing to sacrifice our lives to protect all others, in the same way that a mother would sacrifice her life for the sake of her child.
For which a citation is required. As far as I can see, it is a straw man, I have never heard any Pali scholar say this.
