What this chapter covers: This chapter explains the four divine abidings (brahmaviharas): loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. For each quality, it describes how to develop it step by step, how to extend it from specific people to all beings everywhere, what level of deep absorption it can produce, and the benefits and pitfalls of the practice. It also explains how these four qualities work together as a complete system for transforming the heart.
Loving-Kindness
Why Start Here
The four divine abidings (brahmaviharas) were listed among the meditation subjects alongside the recollections. They are: loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha).
A meditator who wants to develop loving-kindness first should prepare properly. After settling impediments, eating, and resting off any drowsiness, he should sit comfortably in a quiet place. Before beginning, he should reflect on two things: the danger in hatred and the advantage in patience.
Why? Because this practice requires abandoning hatred and cultivating patience. You cannot abandon a danger you have not recognised, or reach a benefit you do not understand.
The danger in hatred is described like this: “When a person hates and is consumed by hate, he kills living things, steals, commits sexual misconduct, lies, and leads others to act the same way.” All of this leads to his downfall.
The advantage in patience is praised by the Buddhas themselves:
No higher rule, the Buddhas say, than patience, And no liberation higher than forbearance.
Patience in force, in strong array: Him I call a true holy one.
No greater thing exists than patience.
Who Not to Start With
When beginning, the meditator must know that certain people are the wrong starting point. Loving-kindness should not be developed first towards these four types:
- An antipathetic person — Trying to place someone you dislike into the position of a dear one is exhausting
- A very dear friend — Trying to place a dear friend into a neutral position is exhausting, and if anything bad happens to them, you feel like weeping
- A neutral person — Trying to place a stranger into the position of someone respected is exhausting
- A hostile person — Anger flares up the moment you think of them
It should also not be directed specifically towards someone of the opposite sex, or towards a dead person.
Why not the opposite sex? Because lust can disguise itself as loving-kindness. A certain elder was asked by a student, “Towards whom should I develop loving-kindness?” The elder replied, “Towards a person you love.” The student loved his wife. He spent all night developing loving-kindness towards her, but lust arose under cover of the practice, and in his agitation he was literally beating against the wall trying to get out of his room to go to her.
Why not a dead person? Because the practice reaches neither absorption nor access concentration. A young monk had been developing loving-kindness towards his teacher. The practice went nowhere. He consulted a senior elder, who said, “Check your meditation object.” The young monk discovered his teacher had died. He switched to a living person and attained absorption right away.
The Step-by-Step Method
Step 1: Start with yourself. Develop loving-kindness towards yourself first, repeating: “May I be happy and free from suffering” or “May I be free from enmity, affliction, and anxiety, and live happily.”
Background Note: This does not contradict the canonical texts, which describe loving-kindness directed towards others. The self-directed phase is not meant to produce absorption. It serves as an example. By recognising “Just as I want happiness and dread pain, just as I want to live and not die, so do all other beings,” the desire for others’ welfare naturally arises. The Buddha himself said: “I visited all quarters with my mind, nor found I any dearer than myself. Self is likewise to every other dear; who loves himself will never harm another.”
Step 2: A respected and loved person. Next, recall the gifts, kind words, virtue, and wisdom of a teacher or mentor — someone who naturally inspires both love and respect. Develop loving-kindness towards that person: “May this good person be happy and free from suffering.” With such a person, absorption can be reached.
Step 3: A very dear friend. Extend the same feeling to a close friend.
Step 4: A neutral person. Extend it to someone you feel neither warmth nor coldness towards, treating them as you would a dear friend.
Step 5: A hostile person. Finally, extend it towards someone you regard as an enemy, treating them as you would a neutral person.
At each step, make the mind soft and flexible before moving on to the next. If you have no enemy, there is no need to force this step. The instruction about hostile persons applies only to someone who actually has enemies.
Getting Rid of Resentment
If resentment arises when you think of a hostile person, use these methods — one after another — until it subsides:
1. Return to loving-kindness absorption. Re-enter loving-kindness meditation towards one of the easier persons. After emerging, direct loving-kindness towards the hostile person again.
2. Reflect on the Buddha’s teachings about anger. Remind yourself:
“Even if bandits brutally severed your limbs with a two-handled saw, anyone who felt hatred on that account would not be carrying out my teaching.”
To repay angry men in kind Is worse than to be angry first; Repay not angry men in kind And win a battle hard to win.
Remember also that anger fulfils your enemy’s wishes. An enemy wants you to be ugly, to lie in pain, to lose your fortune, to have no friends, and to be reborn in a bad destination. When you give in to anger, you grant every one of those wishes yourself.
As a log from a funeral pyre, burnt at both ends and fouled in the middle, serves neither for timber in the village nor in the forest — so is such a person, I say.
3. Remember something good about that person. Even if their behaviour is poor overall, look for one area of self-control:
- Perhaps their bodily conduct is disciplined — they do their duties well, even though their speech and thoughts are rough. Focus on that.
- Perhaps their speech is kind and welcoming, even though their actions and thoughts are not. Focus on that.
- Perhaps their mind is sincere in devotion — they worship carefully, listen to teachings attentively — even though their body and speech are unrefined. Focus on that.
- If none of these three is controlled, arouse compassion: “This person is heading for terrible suffering. Though walking around in the human world now, he is destined for one of the great hells.” Irritation subsides through compassion.
4. Reflect with verses on anger’s futility:
Suppose an enemy has hurt you now In what is his domain — Why try yourself as well to hurt Your mind? That is not his domain.
This anger that you entertain Is gnawing at the very roots Of all the virtues that you guard — Who is there such a fool as you?
Another does ignoble deeds, So you are angry — how is this? Do you then want to copy too The sort of acts that he commits?
If hurt is done you by a foe Because of anger on your part, Then put your anger down, for why Should you be harassed groundlessly?
Since states last but a moment’s time, Those aggregates by which was done The odious act have ceased — so now What is it you are angry with?
Whom shall he hurt, who seeks to hurt Another, in the other’s absence? Your presence is the cause of hurt; Why are you angry, then, with him?
5. Reflect on ownership of actions. Consider: “If I act out of anger, this is the kind of action that leads not to awakening but to the hells. I am like a man who picks up a burning ember to throw at someone — he burns himself first.” Then consider the other person too: “His angry actions will bring him harm, not me. He is like a man throwing dust against the wind — it only covers himself.”
When a fool hates a man that has no hate, Is purified and free from every blemish, Such evil he will find comes back on him, As does fine dust thrown up against the wind.
6. Review the Buddha’s past-life examples of patience. Recall that the one who became the Buddha endured extreme suffering without hatred in life after life:
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As King Silavant, when an enemy king seized his kingdom, he forbade his supporters from lifting a weapon. Even when buried up to his neck in a charnel ground, he had no hatred. After escaping, he found his enemy sleeping in his own bed and treated him as a friend, saying: “The brave aspire, the wise will not lose heart; I see myself as I had wished to be.”
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As the patience-teacher Khantivadin, when a foolish king had him flogged with thorns and his hands and feet cut off, he felt not the slightest anger.
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As the infant Dhammapala, when his father ordered his hands and feet lopped off like bamboo shoots and then commanded his head be cut off, the child resolved: “Now is the time to be impartial towards these four: my father who orders this, the man who carries it out, my lamenting mother, and myself.”
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As the elephant Chaddanta, pierced by a poisoned arrow, he spoke to the hunter without hatred and even cut off his own magnificent tusks to fulfil the hunter’s mission.
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As the Great Monkey, after rescuing a man from a chasm, the man smashed a rock on his head to eat him. The monkey looked at him with tears and said: “Oh, act not so, good sir, or else the fate you reap will long deter all others from such deeds.” With no hatred and ignoring his own pain, he guided the man safely to his destination.
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As the royal serpent Bhuridatta, captured, crushed into a box, and paraded as a plaything, he felt no hatred: “I had no hate for Alambana, lest I should break my precept vow.”
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As the royal serpent Campeyya, tormented by a snake charmer who made him change colours and transform land into water: “Had I given way to wrath, I could have seared him into ash. Had I relaxed mind-mastery, I should have let my virtue lapse. And one who lets his virtue lapse cannot attain the highest goal.”
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As the royal serpent Sankhapala, pierced in eight places with spears, thorns threaded through his wounds, dragged along bumping on the ground, though able to turn his captors to ash with a glance: “Though I felt such poignant agony, I let no hate disturb my Holy Day.”
7. Reflect on the beginninglessness of rebirth. The Buddha said: “It is not easy to find a being who has not formerly been your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your son, your daughter.” Consider: “This person was once my mother, carrying me in her womb, cleaning away my filth without disgust, nurturing me on her lap. This person was once my father, risking his life to provide for me. How can I harbour hatred?”
8. Reflect on the benefits of loving-kindness. The Buddha listed eleven blessings: you sleep in comfort, wake in comfort, dream no evil dreams, are dear to humans and non-humans, deities guard you, fire and poison and weapons do not affect you, your mind concentrates easily, your face is serene, you die unconfused, and if you go no higher, you are reborn in the heavenly Brahma world. If you hold on to anger, you forfeit all of these.
9. Analyse into elements. Ask yourself: “What exactly am I angry at? The head hairs? The body hairs? The nails? The earth element? The water element? The feeling aggregate? The consciousness aggregate?” When you break a person down into elements, anger finds no foothold — like a mustard seed on the point of a needle, or a painting in empty air.
10. Give a gift. Either give something to that person, or accept something from them. A gift dissolves resentment:
A gift for taming the untamed, A gift for every kind of good; Through giving gifts they do unbend And condescend to kindly speech.
Breaking Down the Barriers
When resentment has been overcome, turn your mind with loving-kindness towards the hostile person just as towards the dear, the very dear, and the neutral. Then practise over and over until you reach mental impartiality towards all four — yourself, the dear person, the neutral person, and the hostile person.
The test is this: imagine you are sitting with all three — a dear person, a neutral person, and a hostile person. Bandits arrive and demand one person to kill as a sacrifice. If you think “Let them take this one” or “Let them take that one,” you have not broken down the barriers. Even if you think “Take me, but not these three,” you still have not succeeded — because you wish harm on yourself and favour the others. Only when you cannot single out any of the four, when your mind regards all four with perfect impartiality, have the barriers truly been broken down.
As the ancients said:
When he discriminates between The four — himself, the dear, The neutral, and the hostile one — Then “skilled” is not the name he gets. But when a meditator’s barriers Have all the four been broken down, He treats with equal friendliness The whole world with its deities.
Attaining Absorption
The meditation sign and access concentration arise at the same time the barriers are broken down. From there, without difficulty, the meditator reaches absorption in the same way as with the earth totality device.
Loving-kindness supports the first three levels of deep absorption (jhana) in the four-fold system, or the first four in the five-fold system. It does not reach the fourth jhana in the four-fold system, because loving-kindness is naturally connected with joyful feeling and cannot coexist with the neutral feeling of the highest absorption.
Extending Loving-Kindness Everywhere
Once absorption is attained, the meditator extends loving-kindness in every direction:
“He dwells pervading one direction with his heart filled with loving-kindness, likewise the second, the third, the fourth, and so above, below, and around — everywhere and equally he pervades the entire world with loving-kindness: abundant, exalted, measureless, free from enmity, free from affliction.”
This universal reach becomes possible only after absorption has been achieved.
There are three ways to extend loving-kindness:
Unspecified pervasion — in five ways: “May all beings… May all breathing things… May all creatures… May all persons… May all those with a body… be free from enmity, affliction, and anxiety, and live happily.”
Specified pervasion — in seven ways: towards all women, all men, all noble ones, all ordinary people, all deities, all humans, and all beings in lower realms.
Directional pervasion — in ten directions: east, west, north, south, the four intermediate directions, below, and above. Each of the five unspecified categories and seven specified categories is extended in all ten directions.
Each phrase (“free from enmity,” “free from affliction,” “free from anxiety,” “may they live happily”) represents a separate absorption. This produces twenty absorptions in unspecified pervasion, twenty-eight in specified pervasion, and four hundred and eighty in directional pervasion — totalling five hundred and twenty-eight kinds of absorption.
The Eleven Benefits of Loving-Kindness
When this practice is developed through any of these absorptions, the meditator gains eleven benefits:
- Sleeps in comfort — falls asleep peacefully, as if entering meditation, instead of tossing and snoring
- Wakes in comfort — wakes like a lotus opening, without groaning or yawning
- Dreams no evil dreams — sees only good dreams, as if visiting a shrine or hearing teachings
- Is dear to human beings — beloved like a necklace worn at the chest or a wreath adorning the head
- Is dear to non-human beings — spirits and deities treasure his presence. The Elder Visakha lived at Cittalapabbata Monastery. When he decided to leave, a tree spirit sat on the stairway and wept: “As long as you live here, non-human beings treat each other kindly. When you go, they will quarrel.” He stayed on, and it was there he attained final liberation.
- Deities guard him — as a mother and father guard their child
- Fire, poison, and weapons do not affect him — as with the devotee Uttara (unharmed by fire), the Elder Cula-Siva (unharmed by poison), and the novice Sankicca (unharmed by a blade). They also tell of a cow giving milk to her calf: a hunter threw a spear at her, and it bounced off like a palm leaf — not from any meditation, but simply from the strength of her love for her calf. So powerful is loving-kindness.
- His mind concentrates easily — no sluggishness
- His face is serene — like a ripe palmyra fruit just loosened from its stem
- He dies unconfused — passes away peacefully, as if falling asleep
- If he reaches no higher — he is reborn in the heavenly Brahma world
Compassion
How to Begin
One who wants to develop compassion should start by reflecting on the danger in lacking compassion and the advantage in having it.
As with loving-kindness, do not begin with a dear, neutral, or hostile person. Each simply stays in their usual place emotionally — there is no natural momentum for compassion to arise from those starting points. The opposite sex and the dead are also not suitable.
The Method
The canonical text says: “Just as he would feel compassion on seeing an unlucky, unfortunate person, so he pervades all beings with compassion.”
So begin by finding — or imagining — someone truly wretched: an unfortunate person reduced to utter misery, perhaps with limbs lost, sitting helplessly, suffering visibly. Feel compassion: “This being has been reduced to such misery. If only he could be freed from this suffering!”
If you cannot find such a person, you can arouse compassion even for someone who appears happy but lives an unwholesome life. Think of him as a condemned prisoner being led to execution. Along the way, people give him food, garlands, and perfume. He seems to be enjoying himself. But no one thinks he is truly well off. Everyone feels compassion, knowing every step brings him closer to death. In the same way, think: “Though this person seems happy now, without a single good deed, he is heading for untold suffering.”
The Progression
- Arouse compassion for a wretched or evil-doing person
- Then for a dear person
- Then for a neutral person
- Then for a hostile person
If resentment arises towards the hostile person, use the same methods described under loving-kindness.
Break down the barriers until you feel equal compassion towards all four — yourself, the dear person, the neutral person, and the hostile person. Then develop the sign and reach absorption.
Absorption Levels
Like loving-kindness, compassion supports the first three absorptions in the four-fold system (or the first four in the five-fold system). It is naturally connected to joyful feeling and does not reach the equanimous fourth absorption.
After absorption, extend compassion universally using the same three methods: unspecified pervasion in five ways, specified pervasion in seven ways, and directional pervasion in ten ways. The same eleven benefits apply.
Sympathetic Joy
How to Begin
Do not start with a dear person, a neutral person, or a hostile person. A dear person does not automatically inspire joy just because of dearness — still less a neutral or hostile one. The opposite sex and the dead are also not the field for this practice.
The Method
The best starting point is a “boon companion” — a cheerful friend who is constantly glad, who laughs first and speaks afterwards. He should be the first person you pervade with sympathetic joy.
Alternatively, see or hear about a dear person being happy, cheerful, and successful, and arouse joy: “This being is truly glad! How wonderful, how excellent!”
The canonical text says: “Just as he would be glad on seeing a dear and beloved person, so he pervades all beings with joy.”
If your boon companion or dear person was happy in the past but is now unfortunate, you can still arouse joy by remembering their past happiness: “He once had great wealth and a great following and was always glad.” Or you can arouse joy by imagining their future success: “In the future he will again enjoy such fortune.”
The Progression
- Arouse sympathetic joy towards a boon companion or dear person
- Then towards a neutral person
- Then towards a hostile person
If resentment arises towards the hostile person, use the same methods as under loving-kindness. Break down the barriers with mental impartiality towards all four.
Absorption Levels
Like loving-kindness and compassion, sympathetic joy supports the first three absorptions in the four-fold system (or the first four in the five-fold system). It too is connected with joyful feeling.
After absorption, extend sympathetic joy universally using the same three methods, and enjoy the same eleven benefits.
Equanimity
Prerequisites
Equanimity cannot be developed from scratch. The meditator must first have attained the third absorption (in the four-fold system) through loving-kindness, compassion, or sympathetic joy. He should emerge from that third absorption, having made it familiar, and then see the limitations of the first three divine abidings:
- They involve actively wishing things for beings (“May they be happy”), which keeps a subtle attachment
- Resentment and approval remain close at hand
- Their connection with joy is relatively coarse
He should also see the advantage of equanimity: it is peaceful.
The Method
The canonical text says: “Just as he would feel equanimity on seeing a person who was neither beloved nor unloved, so he pervades all beings with equanimity.”
Begin with a neutral person — someone who is neither beloved nor unloved. Arouse the quality of balanced, impartial observation towards that person. Then extend it:
- Through the neutral person, break down the barrier towards a dear person
- Then towards a boon companion
- Then towards a hostile person
- Then towards yourself
Cultivate the sign, develop it, and practise it repeatedly.
Absorption Level
The fourth absorption (in the four-fold system) arises — the one characterised by equanimous feeling. This absorption arises only on the basis of the earlier divine abidings, not from some other meditation like the earth totality device. The objects must be similar. Just as you cannot place gable rafters in the air without first building the framework of beams, you cannot develop the fourth absorption in equanimity without having first reached the third absorption in the earlier three divine abidings.
After absorption, extend equanimity universally using the same three methods, and enjoy the same benefits.
General Explanation of All Four
The Meanings of Their Names
- Loving-kindness (metta): from a word meaning “to soften” or “to be a friend.” It is the quality of genuine friendliness.
- Compassion (karuna): it “combats” the suffering of others — attacks it and seeks to demolish it. Or it is “extended” to those who suffer.
- Sympathetic joy (mudita): it is the act of being genuinely glad at others’ success.
- Equanimity (upekkha): it “looks on” with balance, abandoning both active wishing and aversion, resting in neutrality.
Characteristics, Functions, and Manifestations
Loving-kindness:
- Characteristic: promoting welfare
- Function: preferring welfare for beings
- Manifestation: removal of annoyance
- Proximate cause: seeing the loveable aspect in beings
- Success: ill will subsides
- Failure: selfish affection arises
Compassion:
- Characteristic: promoting the removal of suffering
- Function: not bearing others’ suffering
- Manifestation: non-cruelty
- Proximate cause: seeing helplessness in those overwhelmed by suffering
- Success: cruelty subsides
- Failure: personal sorrow arises
Sympathetic joy:
- Characteristic: gladness at others’ success
- Function: being free from envy
- Manifestation: elimination of boredom or aversion
- Proximate cause: seeing beings’ success
- Success: boredom subsides
- Failure: giddy excitement arises
Equanimity:
- Characteristic: promoting neutrality towards beings
- Function: seeing equality in beings
- Manifestation: quieting of both resentment and approval
- Proximate cause: seeing that beings are owners of their actions — “Beings are owners of their deeds. Whose choice, if not theirs, determines whether they become happy, get free from suffering, or keep the success they have reached?”
- Success: both resentment and approval subside
- Failure: the dull indifference of ignorance arises
Purpose
The general purpose of all four is the happiness of insight and an excellent future existence. Each also has a specific purpose:
- Loving-kindness wards off ill will
- Compassion wards off cruelty
- Sympathetic joy wards off boredom and aversion
- Equanimity wards off greed and resentment
The Near and Far Enemies
Each divine abiding has two enemies: a near enemy that mimics it and a far enemy that directly opposes it.
Loving-kindness:
- Near enemy: Selfish attachment (greed) — Both see virtues in people. Greed disguises itself as loving-kindness, like a spy who stays close and waits for an opening. Guard against it carefully.
- Far enemy: Ill will — the direct opposite. You cannot practise genuine loving-kindness and feel anger at the same time.
Compassion:
- Near enemy: Worldly grief — Both focus on suffering and misfortune. But worldly grief is the sorrow you feel when you lose something you wanted, not genuine compassion for another’s pain.
- Far enemy: Cruelty — the direct opposite. You cannot practise compassion and be cruel at the same time.
Sympathetic joy:
- Near enemy: Worldly excitement — Both focus on success and pleasure. But worldly excitement is the thrill of getting what you wanted for yourself, not genuine gladness at another’s good fortune.
- Far enemy: Boredom and discontent — the direct opposite. You cannot practise sympathetic joy and be bored or resentful at the same time.
Equanimity:
- Near enemy: Dull indifference based on ignorance — Both appear neutral. But true equanimity sees clearly; dull indifference simply does not care, ignoring both faults and virtues. It is the apathy of a worldly mind.
- Far enemy: Greed and resentment — the direct opposites. You cannot look on with true equanimity and be inflamed with desire or hostility at the same time.
The Beginning, Middle, and End
For all four divine abidings:
- Beginning: The desire and motivation to practise
- Middle: Suppression of the hindrances
- End: Full absorption
Their object is one or many living beings, taken as a mental concept.
How to Extend the Object
The extension of the object happens either at the access or absorption level. The method is like a skilled ploughman who first marks out a boundary, then ploughs.
Start with a single dwelling: “May all beings in this dwelling be free from enmity.” When the mind becomes soft and flexible, extend to two dwellings. Then three, four, five — then a street, half a village, the whole village, the district, the kingdom, one direction, and so on up to an entire world system and beyond.
The same method applies to compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
Why They Are Four
These qualities are four because:
- Loving-kindness purifies one who has much ill will
- Compassion purifies one who has much cruelty
- Sympathetic joy purifies one who has much boredom or aversion
- Equanimity purifies one who has much greed
They also correspond to four ways of attending to beings: wishing them welfare, wishing to remove their suffering, being glad at their success, and looking on with impartial balance.
Think of a mother with four children: a small child, a sick child, a teenager, and an independent adult. She wants the small child to grow up. She wants the sick child to recover. She wants the teenager to enjoy his youth for a long time. And she does not worry about the adult who is managing well on his own. In the same way, the four divine abidings each address a different aspect of our relationship to other beings.
Why They Are in This Order
The order follows naturally from their aims:
- First, wish beings welfare — that is loving-kindness
- Then, seeing that those same beings suffer, wish for the removal of their suffering — that is compassion
- Then, seeing their success, be glad — that is sympathetic joy
- Finally, with nothing more to be done, simply look on with balance — that is equanimity
Equanimity is the natural outcome and culmination of the first three. Just as you cannot place gable rafters in the air without first building the scaffolding, you cannot develop equanimity without having first cultivated the other three.
Absorption Levels Summary
The first three divine abidings produce the first three absorptions (four-fold system) or the first four (five-fold system). They are connected with joyful feeling because they are the escape from grief-based states like ill will, cruelty, and boredom.
Equanimity produces only the remaining single highest absorption. It is inseparable from equanimous (neither-painful-nor-pleasant) feeling.
The Highest Reach of Each
Each divine abiding also serves as a launching pad for a different level of attainment:
- Loving-kindness has beauty as its highest. One familiar with loving-kindness finds beings unrepulsive. This familiarity with the attractive aspect makes it easy to enter the liberation through beauty — the meditation on pure, beautiful colours.
- Compassion has the sphere of boundless space as its highest. One who practises compassion sees clearly the danger in material existence, since compassion arises from witnessing suffering caused by physical violence. Knowing this danger, the mind readily enters the sphere of boundless space — the escape from materiality.
- Sympathetic joy has the sphere of boundless consciousness as its highest. One who practises joy becomes familiar with recognising consciousness in others, since joy arises from perceiving their mental happiness. This makes it easy to enter the sphere of boundless consciousness.
- Equanimity has the sphere of nothingness as its highest. One who practises equanimity becomes skilled at apprehending what is, in the ultimate sense, non-existent — that is, the concept of “beings” — because the mind has let go of active wishes like “May they be happy.” This makes it easy to enter the sphere of nothingness.
How They Perfect All Good Qualities
The great beings — those on the path to full awakening — use these four divine abidings to perfect every good quality:
- Through loving-kindness, they give generously to all without discrimination
- Through compassion, they undertake moral precepts to avoid harming beings
- Through sympathetic joy, they practise renunciation to perfect their virtue
- Through equanimity, they maintain impartiality toward all
They constantly arouse energy with beings’ welfare at heart. They become patient with beings’ many faults through heroic endurance. They do not deceive with empty promises. They are unshakably resolute in pursuing beings’ welfare and happiness. Through loving-kindness they put others first. Through equanimity they expect no reward.
In this way, the four divine abidings bring to perfection all good states — including the ten powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, the six kinds of knowledge unique to a Buddha, and the eighteen special qualities of an Enlightened One.
This is the ninth chapter, “The Description of the Divine Abidings,” in the section on the Development of Concentration in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.