Meditations on the Four immeasurables - the Divine Abidings or Brahma Vihara

Meditations and the 4 illuminating mental states 

At our recent yoga and meditation retreat, we chose the theme of the Four Immeasurables, also known as the Four Divine Abidings or the Brahma Vihara. This is a Buddhist teaching which resonates with the Yogic scriptures and other faith traditions.

The Buddha taught that if one could master four foundational mental states, this would be sufficient for enlightenment. From a psychological perspective, these four mental states are antidotes to mental habits that cause anguish, anger, depression, despair, worry or jealousy.

Much can be said about these states of mind, here are some short descriptions of the meditations we used to bring these states into mindful awareness.

Loving Kindness (metta)

Sit cross legged in a comfortable meditation position. Allow the body to relax. Bring attention first to the breath allowing tension to fade. When ready, start the following sequence within the mind.

1. You walk along a garden pathway, coming to a wooden gate which you open, entering a beautiful garden full of life, flowers, birds and butterlies. At the end of the path is a great set of doors. You go up the stairs and open the doors, allowing sunlight and the floral breeze to permeat the space.

2. On the path, you notice the presence of someone you dearly love. This could be someone alive, or someone who has passed on. It is someone for whom you feel great affection, who shaped your life, and who brings great delight to be in their presence again. Go to this person, welcome them, touch his / her cheek and with your eyes let them know how much they are loved.

3. Proceed to welcome other loved ones into the garden and into the great hall of light. Emphasise your unconditional love for each one. Speak with your heart.

4. Welcome other people into the garden and up into the hall of your heart. These can be co-workers, neighbours, people from the corner shop, people on retreat you don't know so well. Welcome them with the same attention and unconditional love. Connect your heart with theirs.

5. Turn your attention to the path. Welcome someone with whom there has been conflict, pain, anger, harsh words, even betrayal. Without words, welcome them, let there be peace, love and reconciliation in your heart. Do not return to the conflict but rather to their underlying humanity. Welcome them with love.

6. Continue with any other people with whom there has been trouble.

7. Welcome other creatures: pets, wild animals, birds, insects, trees and plants. Take the whole world into your heart space.

8. Turn your attention to yourself. Wrap yourself in unconditional love. Forgive any errors you have made. Appreciate all the good you have done. Appreciate the kindness of your heart. Embrace yourself with the full power of your love and be at one with all of creation.

Sympathetic Joy (mudita)
Sympathetic joy refers directly to our finding happiness in other people's joy. It is the antidote to jealousy or envy, and it has a remarkable ability to lift one out of any rut or sense of despair.

The simple practice is to meditate on someone else and explore the types of joy, laughter and bliss that they may have known in their lives. We can also see someone else's good fortune and wish them joy in this blessing.

In Buddhist practice, deep concentration in meditation typically leads to a sudden an unexpected rush of bliss. This is called jhana, the same as the yogic term 'dhyana', but with the meaning of deep mindful absorption and natural bliss. There are four states of jhana, the highest being one of equanimity where joy, loving-kindess and compassion are present but have given way to a sense of release and detachment, a higher state of consciousness that is less subject to fluctuations.

For our retreat we worked with three approaches.

1. We did laughing yoga. While in a kundalini yoga session, we all laid on our backs and the instructor invited us to laugh softly to ourselves. As we could all hear others starting to laugh, the laughter became infectious and we were soon roaring with laughter. It was joyous and supportive.

2. In another meditation we followed the breath while sitting at a pond. Gentle music played while we meditated. Frogs croaked in the pond and birds sang in the trees. Being in nature already brings joy. In our meditation we turned our attention to our inner smile and let a sense of bliss fill us from within. Our bliss was connected to all the blessings we have in life and the abundance of nature around us. Many finished the meditation with tears of joy.

3. The third meditation on sympathetic joy is described at the bottom of this blogged. It involves actively concentrating on another person's joyous emotions.

Compassion (karuna)
In the forest at night, we did one of the most famous of the meditations on compassion. Compassion, or karuna in Pali and Sanskrit, means connecting with the suffering of oneself or another, accepting this suffering and sharing peace, serenity and understanding of the feeling of suffering. The aim is to share the burden of suffering, making it easier to bear, as well as to investigate the cause of suffering, its characteristics and the path to the alleviation of suffering.

We followed the Mahayana teaching of Tonglen.

1. Sitting comfortably, bring awareness to the breath.
2. Breathing in, imagine all of the suffering of the world being transformed into an oily, black, acrid smoke. Breathe in the bitter smoke, drawing suffering off of others.
3. You can focus on a specific person who is suffering, people who suffer particular difficulties such as ill-health, hunger, cold, depression, fear, heart-break or grief;
4. Once the breathing in of suffering has been established, draw your attention to your inner core and imagine the full moon rising. Bring the bright light of the moon into your consciousness. All the light to be very bright inside you.
5. Breathe in the oily, acrid smoke of suffering. Breathe out the compassionate and healing light of the moon. Repeat for as long as appropriate.
6. As you reach the end of the cycle, draw your attention to the brilliance of the moon light, allow this to fill you completely from within, to a level of brilliance that illuminates you and the world.

We completed this meditation with the Chandra Namaskara moon salutation yoga sequence.

Equanimity (upekkha) 
Equanimity refers to a still, peaceful and alert mind. A state of equanimity means there is no judgement, not attaching to things, not pulling away from things. The mind has come to a deep state of concentration, being equally aware of everything while remaining at ease.

Equanimity can arise when we have no stress, when we are in a good space. To achieve equanimity in meditation is something more profound. It requires practice and the ability to both concentrate and 'let go' of external thinking. Often it is the ego that holds us back. Sometimes we are afraid of having a really still mind, it may feel that we are not fully present. These are habitual anxieties of the ego, and they are hindrances to a true state of concentrated absorption.

For those who have a sense of God, equanimity can come about by linking your core sense of stillness with the love, compassion and generosity of God. For those not working with a theistic framework, equanimity is found by stilling the inner mind, being at one with yourself, and through this, we find a connection to all that there is in the universe. Equanimity is typically experienced without words or thoughts, it is a state of being in the present fully without desires pulling us this way or the other.

We did a number of meditations, including meditation on the breath, meditation on the body, and meditation on nature.

Meditation on the body - 
We started with a meditation on the body. This starts with feeling where the hair is growing on the head and body. We tune into the sensation of the growing hair and the follicles. We move out across the hairless skin of the body, observing any sensations. We move our attention below the skin, identifying muscles in the body - biceps, quadriceps, erectus spinae, muscles in the hands, chest and neck. We move the attention to the bones of the body. We meditation on the shoulder joints, hip joints, the thigh bones, the pelvis, the collar bones and the spinal column. We shift our attention to the internal organs. We see if we can feel the kidneys, the lungs, the intenstines and the heart. We follow the course of the blood through the body. We meditation on gases in the body - the air in the lungs, in the mouth, gases in the gut and rectum, pressure in the eyes. We complete the meditation by being aware of the whole body, and then gently leaving the body in peace and moving our attention to our spiritual core, inside us, but no longer in the physical dimension. We seek the silence of the inner focus.

Meditation on the ego - 
1. In a meditation pose, come to identify one word that describes a positive characteristic of your personality. Imagine the sound of the word. You may choose to write the word up in your mind's eye - perhaps visualising a black board, white board or tablette. Write the word in large clear letters.
2. Meditate on the word. How does it make you feel? If you feel any physical sensations in the body, pay attention to these. You can meditate on the physical reaction to the word.
3. Choose a second positive characteristic and follow the same sequence of writing it up, meditating on it, and seeing if there is a physical reaction.
4. Choose a third positive characteristic and follow the same sequence.
5. Be aware and review all three words that provide positive characteristics we associate with ourselves.
6. Go back to the first word - now find the shadow of this word. Though this is a positive characteristic, is there also a negative characteristic which also describes you? Perhaps a shadow of this good characteristic, something you know to be true but it shameful or regrettable? Meditate on the shadow word. See if there are any sensations in the body, particularly different sensations from your reactions to positive words. Meditate on these sensations.
7. Go to the second positive word - find if there is a shadow characteristic which is negative. Follow the same procedure. Identify the shadow word, meditate on your reaction, particularly in the body.
8. Go to the third positive word - look to see if there is a shadow characteristic associated with your personality. Identify the shadow and look for the physical reaction. Try not to berate yourself or be too judgemental, just let the information flow and watch the reactions of the body.
9. Meditate on all six words. Be with this. Find peace and equanimity with these divergent elements of your personality. Know that they all feel true to you. Do not attach or discard any of the words or reactions. Meditate on your inner peace.



Brahma Vihara team meditation
The fifth practice, which has become one of our set practices, and which we used twice over the retreat weekend, combines all of the four mental states in a team meditation exercise. We learnt the practice initially from Susan Groves, a Core Process practitioner in Cape Town. Core process psychology is informed by Buddhist meditative tradition and Western psychology being combined. The astute observation is that we tend to shape each other's mental states. If you are in a room full of meditators, it is easier to hold one's own attention. Somehow we tune into the mental intentions and states of mind of those around us; there is a type of flow between humans, and possibly between other living beings, which can be shared and can be a joint practice.

The practice involves 5 men (in this case) sitting in meditation together. One man sits in the middle of the group, the four others sit facing inwards towards the central person. It is easiest if the guiding instructor places people in cardinal positions, so the external circle of meditators can be easily identified either as East, North, West, South, positions, or relative to one of the walls. In this situation we had four sets of five meditators. Those sitting with their backs to the East were asked to meditate on the state of Metta / Loving Kindness. Those sitting with their backs to the North were asked to meditate on Mudita / Sympathetic Joy. Those sitting with their backs to the West were asked to meditate on Karuna / Compassion. Those with their backs to the South were asked to meditate on Upekhka / Equanimity. Each meditator should connect with his specific mental state, bring this to consciousness, bring this mental state to the surface and concentrate intensely on it. It should then be projected or offered very purely to the man in the middle.

One meditator offers unconditional love to the man in the middle. One meditates on the joy and bliss of the man in the middle. One meditator concentrates on lifting suffering from the shoulders of man in the middle, or at least being a witness to that man's suffering in life, his losses and sadness. The last meditator offers a feeling of equanimity and tranquillity, of non-attachment and serenity. The man in the middle simply clears his mind and accepts whatever positive mental states he is being offered. He makes himself receptive to this generosity and attempts to sense the good intentions and kindness around him.

The guide times the meditation, ringing a bell or gong after a given amount of time. We used between 5 and 8 minutes in the practice for each cycle. Once the first cycle is done. The men are invited to move silently in rotation. The man at the East point moves to the North point, the North point moves to the West and so forth. The man in the middle moves to the East point. They are then reminded to take up the mental state associated with where there are seated, as per the first round. The cycle continues until each man has had a turn to give away a mental state and to receive the set of mental generosity.

The practice usually becomes more intense as the cycles rotate. It is normal that some feel it easier to give than to receive. Some feel certain mental states are easier to connect with and contribute. Some people may be overcome with emotion. Other times people may feel a sense of numbness or disconnect. Participants are invited to observe their reactions and feelings. At the end the guide invites the team to thank each other, which may involve, for example a group hug.

Later it is possible for the participants to share their experiences and insights from the Brahmavihara team exercise. It is a deep and beautiful practice worth repeating on different occasions.

It is quite difficult to do the exercise if you do not have 5 people per team. We have tried 6, where there are two people in the centre. It is slightly more difficult but achievable. We had one team with only 4, where the men projected the mental state onto the rest of the team. This is less focussed but also feasible.