Brahma Vihara is a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them.
Loving kindness (metta)
This is active good will towards all
Compassion (karuna)
Karuna results from metta, it is identifying the suffering of others as
one's own
Empathetic joy (muditha)
Muditha is the feeling of joy because others are happy, even if one did
not contribute to it, it is a form of sympathetic joy
Equanimity (upekkha)
Upekkha is even-mindedness and serenity, treating everyone impartially.
They are the
meditative states, thoughts, and actions to be cultivated in Buddhist
meditation. They are the positive emotions and states that are productive and
helpful to anyone of any religion or even to the one with no religion. The
result will be a very nice and good person, free from hate and ill-will. Those
who cultivate the brahma viharas are guaranteed to happiness. Those who further
cultivate equanimity, may reach insightful states and wisdom of enlightenment
experiences.
The four Sublime States are explained in The
Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), written in the fifth century CE by the
scholar and commentator Buddhaghosha. They are often practiced by taking each
of the state in turn and applying it to oneself (a practice taught by many
contemporary teachers and monastics that was established after the Pali Suttas
were completed), and then to others nearby, and so on to everybody in the
world, and to everybody in all universes
Each of the four brahma-viharas
has what is called a near enemy and a far enemy. The near enemy is a state of
mind that is close to the brahma-vihara and is sometimes mistaken as the good
emotion, but is actually “a near enemy” and not the correct mental state. The
far enemy is virtually the opposite of the brahma-vihara and is completely off
the mark for the emotion that is strived for. This is shown in this table:
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