The Four Immeasurables

Also known as the brahma-viharas: kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

• Friendliness toward oneself and others, wishing well: safety, health, success, happiness, peace. 

• Empathy for pain and suffering, and wishing oneself and others be free of it.

• Appreciating the good in the world, rejoicing in happiness and success, one’s own and others’.

• Clear and balanced in pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral experience, with friends, strangers, and enemies.

The bliss and stillness of stable attention (shamatha) and the clarity of insight (vipsahyana) are compelling, and extraordinarily helpful. But without doubt caring for others and appreciating the good also lead to the deepest insight, happiness, peace, and freedom.

HERE is a traditional method for cultivating the four immeasurables. And HERE is a one-page version.

Enjoy, with gentle persistence...