Is metta a ‘feeling’ , or a ‘desire’ for the wellness of others, or a ‘process‘ of sending a state of wellbeing to others?
If it’s a ‘desire’, then can it lead to a form of clinging? (Suffering when we see others suffer). If meditation helps us to extinguish the discriminating mind, would that mean that ‘metta’ is given to ‘all’ things in equal measures? For instance, wishing strangers, trees, and animals as well as our family, the same degree of loving kindness/well being, without discriminating.
This question arises in my mind when trying to make sense of wooden furniture made from a life that would have given shelter and oxygen to all yet asks for nothing in return; whilst trying to understand why there is a universal lack of empathy for chickens that never see daylight before ending up on a dinner plate, or a cow that becomes a leather handbag with a price tag thats higher than when it was alive.