Metta as primary practice

I am curious if anyone has taken on metta or the brahma viharas as a primary practice, or as a means to attain jhana? If so, what was your experience? What was useful, not useful, etc.?

Owen Becker from the old KFD has some experience with this

a quick google yielded this - you can probably contact him about it more

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2013/02/...introduction-to.html

What's your goal Bill? And what do you bring to the table in terms of current ability to access jhana?

Shargrol,

I have some experience with this, and I've been talking to other people, teachers, etc. for the past six months or so trying to gather information. I'd like to take on a practice for sometime of 3 or more hours of a day of metta practice, in addition to my regular somatic and mahamudra practices, and report my findings. I hope to start a new log here soon doing that.
It would seem there are almost as many definitions of jhana as there are teachers, but I suppose they are mainly split into the two camps with one viewing jhana as being totally detached from bodily awareness, etc., and another school of thought thinking there is very much a sense of pleasure as a bodily feeling as the sutta goes. I'm of the latter variety, but consider jhana to be a state without thoughts. I am able to access these but it takes several (two or three) hours to really stabilizine, and this when I am practicing this way consistently. I spent the first seven or so years of practice mostly interested in insight-heavy techniques, so I am looking to develop further the nourishing qualities of metta and samadhi alongside each other as I've found it to have nice effects on my life in the past. And I am a naturally curious person so I am curious to hear what others have to share.
What is your experience/knowledge?

Bill

Thanks femtosecond. I like those instructions.

Sounds like your focus is mostly on the jhanas, rather than the insights of metta and four immeasurables?

In general, I tend to get fairly soft/still embodied versions of the jhanas, only flashing sometimes and unpredictable to the formless ones. My experience with metta/immeasurables was mostly for insight and kept me in the "sensual delight" domain of jhanas. It seems like I often dwell in a soft third jhana when I'm in metta practice, but the active nature of the practice itself tends to be contrary to obtaining really hard jhanas. The metta practice did a great job of reducing ill will during so-called third path. I worked through the four immeasurables in late third path with a teacher, which really set the stage for the "just looking" that seems to be important while closing in on so-called fourth path.

Ken McLeod has a description of the practices (and timeframes) used for metta and four immeasurable practice in a three-year retreat style format in Wake Up to your Life. Basically, it's one part of a daily practice that's done, and it's done very meticulously over a several month timeframe. I don't have experience with working on it so slowly/diligently. While I took my time, metta seemed to transition onward to four immeasurables which lead to ecstatic "looking" practice.

Hope this helps in some way!

Thanks. I'll check out the McLeod resource.