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AN 4.126
PTS: A ii 129
Metta Sutta: Good Will (2)
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 2006
Alternate translation: Ñanamoli

"Monks, there are these four types of individuals to be found existing in the world. Which four?

"There is the case where an individual keeps pervading the first direction[1] — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with good will. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with good will: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, not-self. At the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in conjunction with the devas of the Pure Abodes. This rebirth is not in common with run-of-the-mill people.

"Again, there is the case where an individual keeps pervading the first direction — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with compassion... appreciation... equanimity. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with equanimity: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will. He regards whatever phenomena there that are connected with form, feeling, perception, fabrications, & consciousness, as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a disintegration, an emptiness, not-self. At the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in conjunction with the devas of the Pure Abodes. This rebirth is not in common with run-of-the-mill people.

"These are four types of individuals to be found existing in the world."

# Notes

1.
  The east.

See also: AN 4.125