'Come, mendicants, give up these five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom, and meditate spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, spread a heart full of love to the whole world—abundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.'
-Buddha, SN46.54. |
What are the Brahmaviharas?
The Brahmaviharas ('divine abodes') are a set of four practices which cultivate four beneficial qualities of the heart: loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity.
Sometimes the Brahmaviharas are considered a kind of concentration practice, and they can indeed lead to jhana if taken far enough, but they're also immensely valuable and beautiful practices in their own right, and I consider them worthy of their own section.
The Pali canon doesn't give much in the way of instruction for the Brahmaviharas, simply stating that one should 'pervade one's awareness' with these qualities. As a result, the commentarial tradition that formed after the Buddha's death developed a formal method for the cultivation of these qualities, based around the use of phrases. However, the traditional phrases often don't work well for modern people, so I'll also suggest a visualisation-based approach to get in touch with each quality as we go through the list.
Also, because it can be tricky to go from a standing start to pervading every part of your awareness universally and unconditionally with an emotion, even a positive one, the traditional approach tends to move in stages, starting at the easy end of the spectrum and gradually extending the emotion out to more difficult situations. Classically, these practices start with generating loving kindness, compassion etc. for ourselves, then move on to friends and benefactors, then neutral people, then difficult people ('enemies' in the traditional language). However, it's a sad fact of modern life that many of us find ourselves the hardest people to be kind and compassionate towards, so these days you'll often find 'yourself' placed at the end of the list rather than the beginning.
Practising the Brahmaviharas
Metta: Loving kindness, friendliness, benevolence, well-wishing
Loving kindness is the attitude of wishing someone well - not because they aren't well necessarily, but just because we know it's a good thing to be well.
To evoke loving kindness, you could use phrases, such as:
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing a golden light in your heart which shines on yourself and those around you, bringing warmth and well-being to all who it touches.
Alternatively, if you can simply connect with a felt sense of wishing someone well, then do that! The purpose of the phrases and/or the visualisation is simply to get you in touch with that feeling, so if you can go straight there, you don't need the other steps.
(You can find two 10-minute guided loving kindness practices on my Audio page, one using phrases, the other using visualisation.)
Karuna: Compassion
Compassion is the attitude of wishing for relief from suffering for yourself or another. Again, this doesn't mean that the people we're directing compassion towards never experience happiness; it's simply a recognition of the truly universal nature of human suffering. We all have bad days, we all struggle, and we can form the earnest wish that that suffering could find some relief.
To evoke compassion, you could use phrases, such as:
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing a golden light in your heart which shines on yourself and those around you, dispersing the dark clouds of suffering wherever it shines.
Again, if you can simply connect with a felt sense of wishing that someone be relieved of suffering, do that!
(You can also find two 10-minute guided compassion practices on my Audio page, one using phrases, the other using visualisation.)
Mudita: Joy/sympathetic joy/resonant joy, rejoicing, gladness
Mudita refers to joy, but not just any kind. Mudita is a joy which resonates with another joy - it's a happiness which arises in response to - we might say 'in celebration of' - the happiness of someone else, or even ourselves. It can be thought of as the flip side to compassion - where compassion is an emotion evoked in response to suffering, mudita is an emotion which is evoked in response to happiness. If you've ever seen children or animals playing happily and felt a surge of happiness in response, that's mudita.
To evoke mudita, you could use phrases, such as:
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing the other person experiencing a moment of delight or laughter, or seeing a golden light shining in their heart which causes a light in your own heart to shine in response.
Again, if you can go straight to the felt sense of joy in response to joy, you don't need these other steps.
Upekkha: Equanimity, equipoise, acceptance
Equanimity is the quality of balance, of having a stable footing despite the ups and downs of life. While it might seem like the odd one out in this list, equanimity is actually vital - if we open to the suffering of others through compassion but don't have sufficient equanimity, we're liable to be overwhelmed by the strength of the world's pain; and if we open to the joy of others but are unable to stay grounded in the face of it, we can drift off into the clouds, oblivious to the problems around us that need to be addressed.
To evoke equanimity, you could use phrases, such as:
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing yourself and the other person bathed in a vast, unchanging golden light which simply holds you in its peaceful glow, or seeing the other person simply going about their day without any involvement or interference from you.
And, of course, if you can go straight there, just do that.
The Brahmaviharas ('divine abodes') are a set of four practices which cultivate four beneficial qualities of the heart: loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity.
Sometimes the Brahmaviharas are considered a kind of concentration practice, and they can indeed lead to jhana if taken far enough, but they're also immensely valuable and beautiful practices in their own right, and I consider them worthy of their own section.
The Pali canon doesn't give much in the way of instruction for the Brahmaviharas, simply stating that one should 'pervade one's awareness' with these qualities. As a result, the commentarial tradition that formed after the Buddha's death developed a formal method for the cultivation of these qualities, based around the use of phrases. However, the traditional phrases often don't work well for modern people, so I'll also suggest a visualisation-based approach to get in touch with each quality as we go through the list.
Also, because it can be tricky to go from a standing start to pervading every part of your awareness universally and unconditionally with an emotion, even a positive one, the traditional approach tends to move in stages, starting at the easy end of the spectrum and gradually extending the emotion out to more difficult situations. Classically, these practices start with generating loving kindness, compassion etc. for ourselves, then move on to friends and benefactors, then neutral people, then difficult people ('enemies' in the traditional language). However, it's a sad fact of modern life that many of us find ourselves the hardest people to be kind and compassionate towards, so these days you'll often find 'yourself' placed at the end of the list rather than the beginning.
Practising the Brahmaviharas
Metta: Loving kindness, friendliness, benevolence, well-wishing
Loving kindness is the attitude of wishing someone well - not because they aren't well necessarily, but just because we know it's a good thing to be well.
To evoke loving kindness, you could use phrases, such as:
- May I (or you) be happy.
- May I be well.
- May I be at ease.
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing a golden light in your heart which shines on yourself and those around you, bringing warmth and well-being to all who it touches.
Alternatively, if you can simply connect with a felt sense of wishing someone well, then do that! The purpose of the phrases and/or the visualisation is simply to get you in touch with that feeling, so if you can go straight there, you don't need the other steps.
(You can find two 10-minute guided loving kindness practices on my Audio page, one using phrases, the other using visualisation.)
Karuna: Compassion
Compassion is the attitude of wishing for relief from suffering for yourself or another. Again, this doesn't mean that the people we're directing compassion towards never experience happiness; it's simply a recognition of the truly universal nature of human suffering. We all have bad days, we all struggle, and we can form the earnest wish that that suffering could find some relief.
To evoke compassion, you could use phrases, such as:
- May I (or you) be free from suffering.
- May I be free from pain.
- May I be free from troubles of body and mind.
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing a golden light in your heart which shines on yourself and those around you, dispersing the dark clouds of suffering wherever it shines.
Again, if you can simply connect with a felt sense of wishing that someone be relieved of suffering, do that!
(You can also find two 10-minute guided compassion practices on my Audio page, one using phrases, the other using visualisation.)
Mudita: Joy/sympathetic joy/resonant joy, rejoicing, gladness
Mudita refers to joy, but not just any kind. Mudita is a joy which resonates with another joy - it's a happiness which arises in response to - we might say 'in celebration of' - the happiness of someone else, or even ourselves. It can be thought of as the flip side to compassion - where compassion is an emotion evoked in response to suffering, mudita is an emotion which is evoked in response to happiness. If you've ever seen children or animals playing happily and felt a surge of happiness in response, that's mudita.
To evoke mudita, you could use phrases, such as:
- I am happy for you.
- May your good fortune continue.
- May you not lose the good fortune you've gained.
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing the other person experiencing a moment of delight or laughter, or seeing a golden light shining in their heart which causes a light in your own heart to shine in response.
Again, if you can go straight to the felt sense of joy in response to joy, you don't need these other steps.
Upekkha: Equanimity, equipoise, acceptance
Equanimity is the quality of balance, of having a stable footing despite the ups and downs of life. While it might seem like the odd one out in this list, equanimity is actually vital - if we open to the suffering of others through compassion but don't have sufficient equanimity, we're liable to be overwhelmed by the strength of the world's pain; and if we open to the joy of others but are unable to stay grounded in the face of it, we can drift off into the clouds, oblivious to the problems around us that need to be addressed.
To evoke equanimity, you could use phrases, such as:
- I accept you as you are.
- I care for you but I cannot guarantee your happiness.
- You are welcome here.
Or you could use a visualisation, such as seeing yourself and the other person bathed in a vast, unchanging golden light which simply holds you in its peaceful glow, or seeing the other person simply going about their day without any involvement or interference from you.
And, of course, if you can go straight there, just do that.