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Downloadable pdf of Verse 1 analysis

SUTTA STUDIES - Mettā Sutta analysis

VERSE 1 = Sn 143

Analysis - VERSE 1

karanīyam:

Understanding the sense of this first word is so important, since it sets the tone for the entire poem. As a future passive participle it would translate literally as “to be done,” suggesting a description of the way things would be under certain conditions that may come to pass. So often it is put into English in an admonishing or reproving manner, such as “this should be done” or “this must be done.” Unfortunately, this tone of voice brings with it a sense of right and wrong, of being in compliance with or deviating from a norm or an injunction, which is not at all what I think the verse is saying. Buddhist ethics generally is about understanding cause and effect, rather than with obeying or disobeying rules. All that follows in the Mettā Sutta is a series of descriptions of how a wise and skillful person, or a person who wishes to progress toward the goal, would hold themselves in the world. It is not a list of dos and don’ts.

atthakusalena:

The word attha has a range of meanings, from “good,” “welfare,” or “well-being” to “purpose,” “meaning,” or “goal.” In fact it embraces all of these, and suggests that goodness or well being is a meaningful goal that can be attained. It is not something that occurs by chance, nor is it the gift of a benevolent being. Rather it is a skill that can be learned, practiced and perfected. The word kusala carries this sense of skillfulness, and the compound is to be understood as “skill in regard to the good.” Kusala can also mean “good” or “wholesome” in its own right, because of the inextricable relationship of the two ideas in Buddhist thought. It is taken for granted that all beings aspire toward their own welfare, and this sutta is intended to help people achieve it by learning what wholesome qualities of character to skillfully develop.

tam santam padam:

These three words all end in a similar manner, and are thus part of the same phrase. Tam means “the” or “that,”, santam is “calm,” “peace” or “peaceful,” and padam literally means “foot”, generally means “place” or “location,” and figuratively means “state” or “condition.” We can thus take it as “that peaceful state” or “that state of peace.” You will notice that some translators capitalize these words, indicating that they take them to be referring to nibbāna, the final emancipation of mind toward which the Buddhist path is directed. This is probably the case, since it is a common enough allusion to nibbāna, but it may also be construed to refer more generally to a state of calm well being in which the fires of passion are diminished, if not extinguished.

abhisamecca:

This verb is built up in three layers, the root (i) meaning of “to go” preceeded by two prefixes which give the verb some added direction and nuance. The first, abhi, suggests “unto” or “toward,” while the prefix sam intimates conjunction or completeness and yields a sense of “with” or “together.” It would be too simplistic to just add these three elements into “to go toward together” or “to go unto completion,” for the whole is always more than the sum of its parts in Pali lexigraphy. But such an analysis does often help get a sense of the nuances of meaning in a verb. We see it translated a lot as “attain,” but some translators take this more figuratively and render “grasp” (Woodward), “understand” (Basham), or “become aware” (Aronson). More important is to discern whether the author is describing the behavior of one who has already achieved the peaceful state, or is describing what one needs to do in order to attain it for themselves. The first word of the stanza suggests the latter is the case, but I think the poem often turns on its ability to embrace both possibilities with creative ambiguity.

sakko ujū ca sūjū ca suvaco c’assa mudu anatimānī:

The second part of the verse is pretty straightforward, being a list of six positive virtues, and does not benefit too much from analysis. It may be worth pointing out that sūjū is the same word as ujū but with the prefix su- acting as an amplifying or a beautifying element (which it also does to –vaca, “speech”). However we put it into English, what we are literally saying is “straight” (uju) and “very straight” or “perfectly straight” (ujū). Most translators take this in the sense it also has in English of “upright” or “honest.” It is also useful to notice that the verb in this section (assa), as an optative form of “he is,” further adds to the sense introduced by the first word karaniya of conditionality: “he would be” is probably better than “he should be.” The last word is also layered: “pride” (mana) is amplified by the prefix ati- (over-, very-) to yield “arrogant” or “conceited,” and this is then reversed by the negative prefix an- to arrive at “not overly proud” or simply “humble. 

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