In both Hindu and Buddhist wisdom traditions, there is a very useful formulation that, in Sanskrit, is called the four Brahmaviharas, roughly translated as "the Four Abodes of God." These are (1) Maitri (Pali "Metta"), referring to a blend of gratitude and benevolence; (2) Karuna, meaning empathy or compassion; (3) Mudita, meaning selfless joy; and (4) Upeksha (Pali "Upekkah"), meaning equanimity. In Buddhist traditions, these are often referred to as the four limitless mindsets, suggesting that they can and should be cultivated continually. But a more secular and colloquial way of thinking about these is as simply four useful attitudes to cultivate.
One Indian guru I have read, Swami Satchinananda, suggested that we think of these as a repertoire of attitudes we should deploy, as necessary, with everyone we encounter. I found his teaching on this to be very useful, so I would like to share it with the community. Maitri, or benevolence, should be our default attitude toward everyone we meet, which can be cultivated with the practice of gratitude. It means that we encounter everyone with a default attitude of benevolence, since they are all, potentially, our teachers and/or students, for whom we would give thanks. This is remarkably easy once you get the hang of it. One way to monitor your attitude toward others is to pay close attention to your own facial expressions, and particularly the muscles around your eyes and mouth, for these, quite automatically, tend to tighten up when you feel uncomfortable around someone. With practice, you can notice this, and deliberately soften the muscles around your eyes. Try it! The causality is reversible here: just as a sense of external threat instinctively causes you to tighten up your eye muscles (to make you less vulnerable), the deliberate relaxing of those muscles (accompanied by deep, measured breathing) can cause you to feel less threatened and more benevolent. Once you've experienced this, it is quite magical! Karuna means compassion, but not pity; that is an important distinction, for pity involves looking down on people, whereas true compassion is empathy--the ability to use your imagination to put yourself in another person's shoes, and to feel their suffering vicariously. And this too can be cultivated through practice. One of my favorite techniques for cultivating empathy is the Tibetan technique of Tonglen: breathing in another person's pain, anguish, and suffering--taking it upon yourself (like Jesus on the cross), and then breathing out selfless love, comfort, and relief to them (like the resurrected Jesus). This makes you more likely to devote some of your time, energy, and resources to actually alleviating their suffering in reality, and not just in your imagination. Mudita means joy, but not just the giddy, egocentric pleasure of chocolate cake or good sex. Rather it refers to selfless joy--the joy you feel--and can actively cultivate--when you see a wildflower, your children's smiles, or the exuberance of college graduates at their commencement exercises when they receive their diploma. So think of it as vicarious joy. This applies also, of course, to the enjoyment of art and music--which are a kind of gratitude for the skills and inspiration of the performers, artists, or composers. Finally, Upeksha, or equanimity, is the attitude you should practice bringing to those you DON'T like, as an antidote to the rage and fury they often trigger in us, either by their boorish behavior or by simply being who they are. And, needless to say, this is an ongoing challenge, but like the other three--benevolence, compassion, and selfless joy--it can be cultivated by simply noticing when rage has arisen, going back to our breath, and observing, then letting go of it. This takes practice, of course: the teaching of Jesus to "Love your enemies" and "Bless them that curse you" is the most difficult injunction of all. Martin Luther King shed considerable insight on this when he told us "When Jesus told us to love our enemies, he did not say that we necessarily had to like them." So you can think of equanimity as quietly and patiently cultivating selfless love, even for those you don't like. And this does not necessarily entail engaging them in any way; it just entails monitoring, being honest about, observing, and letting go of your own aversive reactions as they arise. And like all the rest, this takes practice.Here is a simple exercise for cultivating the four useful attitudes. You can do it on a single breath, or on four consecutive breaths. Here is how it works on a single breath: (1) On the in-breath, focus on the phrase "Breathing with gratitude." (2) On the pause between inbreath and outbreath, focus on "Observing with compassion." (3) On the out-breath, focus on "Letting go with (selfless) joy" and on the pause before the next in-breath, focus on "Abiding in equanimity." OR you can devote a whole breath, in and out, to each of these phrases. Try combining this with visualizations if you wish--e.g. gratitude for the trees that provide the oxygen you breathe; compassion (as you hold your breath) for all who, for one reason or another; "can't breathe" due to various forms of inner or outer suffering; joy in "letting go" of attachments, resentments, or any other form of wishing things were other than they are; and calmly and peacefully abiding, like a tall sequoia or a mountain, high above the noise and confusion of life... Experiment!
Another possibility: the familiar mantra OM MANI PADME HUM can be used in a similar way, by imaginatively assigning each of the four adaptive attitudes to one of these words: OM (breathe), MANI (observe), PADME (let go), HUM (abide). This makes sense, since "OM" is the seed syllable for the "Holy Spirit"--the breath of life; "MANI" denotes the Jewel of open-hearted compassion; "PADME" denotes the Lotus of awakening to our higher selves, of letting go of attachments; and "HUM" denotes tranquility or equanimity.(
