Recollecting the positive.

I find that a lot of meditators in the West have quite horrible views of themselves. There are so many people who treat themselves...and others appallingly. We have an internal dialogue that is nothing more than one continuous bitch session....I'm a fuckwit, look at that complete fucking tool, god what a cow!, I look like the arse end of a truck carrying pigs to an abbatoir.....the "charming" commentary rolls on.
This has to stop. Well with Metta this does stop. I gave up believing in spontaneous origination at about the same time as I gave up believing in god, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and my father actually being a nice person...which is alot for a 10 year old. Metta needs something to help it get started. This is somewhat akin to starting a car on a frosty morning....sometimes extreme measures are needed.
If you  are already in posession of a positive self view...you like yourself (then what in hell are you doing reading my blog?), then all you need to do is clean the ice off your windscreen, jack up the heater in the car and drive away. This would be the equivalent of sitting down and having Metta to yourself without any trouble at all. 
Some of us need to clean the ice off and give a couple of turns of the ignition and pumps of the accelerator. This would be like remembering our favourite kitten or bringing up images of babies etc.,
And lastlly some of us need to clean the ice off, give the ignition a couple of turns, the accelerator a couple of pumps, get out, swear a blue streak, get back in and repeat the above and finally clutch start the car. This would be the same as bringing in the Anussati as a way of starting off Metta.
        Perhaps you haven't heard of the  Anussati. The Anussati are the Recollections. There can be as many as ten of them, but in the usual course of things there are seven which keep each other company and they are:

1.  Buddhanussati: Recollection of the Buddha and his qualities. This where you take a line such as "Destroyer of Defilements" and recollect/remember he really did destroy defilements.
2. Dhammanussati: Recollection of the Dhamma. Here you use a line like "Seen by the wise for themselves" and recollect/remember that the Dhamma can be seen by us.
3. Sanghanussati: Recollection of the Sangha. Here we remember that the Sangha can be the source of a lot of merit for ourselves. Sounds selfish, but the "Field of Merit" can be used by Lay people in order to create wholesome mind states like Metta.
4. Caganussati: Recollection of Generosity. Here we bring to mind all  the nice things we have ever done. It isn't to bring about conceit, but to remind ourselves that we are not only capable of being nice people, but are often nicer than we give ourselves credit for being.
5. Silanussati: Recollection of Virtue. Keeping Sila is hard. There are just so many temptations out there, some of them have great bums and chests and others have alluring labels with words like "a hint of blackberry" or "hops" or "a rich complexity of subtle flavours" or "5% alcohol per volume" on them. And we all know about the Fourth Wise Monkey? The first three Wise Monkeys are "See no evil", "Hear no evil" and "Speak no evil"...well the Fourth Wise Monkey is "Have No Fun". So on the rare occasions when we actually manage to observe the Five Trainings, we remember this vanishingly rare event and take joy in what seems like the meditative version of pushing shit up hill.
6. Dewanussati: Recollection of Dewa. I never could get into the earth spirits.
7. Santinussati: Recollection of Peace. And not a recollection of a certain forest monastery half way between Sydney and Canberra...unless you do get a lot of peace there. Recollection of Peace I seriously get into, I'm the parent of a one year old boy and there have been plenty of times in the last 12 months when silence seemed like a distant memory or hallucination.  Nobody tells you that the volume control on kids is set at maximum and even new borns are amazingly loud sleepers. So when I get my ten seconds of silence...I wallow, yes wallow, in just how nice it is to be in a quiet place. Even the absence of things to do, the joy of just being able to sit causes joy to arise.

I wrote a book on the Anussati under my former identity angulimalo. If anyone wants a copy just e-mail me and I'll send you a copy as an attachment in reply.

I use Caganussati, Silanussati and Santinussati as ways of causing Metta to arise towards me. Basically anything that gets the warm fuzzies up & movig around will help Metta.
Long read...now off to saving the universe...wait, that's Dr Who's job. Running the universe...that's gods job. Fucking the universe....could we really handle having so many unemployed politicians?