Brahmaviharas at the Breath
February 07, 2010
We chant the brahmaviharas, the four sublime attitudes, every evening before the meditation. It’s to remind ourselves of the attitudes we should bring to ourselves and to other people: attitudes of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy or appreciation, and equanimity. You notice that the chant starts with extending these attitudes toward ourselves. One of the difficulties in learning how to master these attitudes is learning how to develop them at the right time, the right place. There are times when we have goodwill for ourselves and times when we don’t; when we have compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, toward ourselves, and times when we don’t. It’s not necessarily easy to master the issue of when is the right time, when is the right place, for each of these attitudes. So it’s good to think of the meditation as an opportunity to learn that skill with the breath.