All this observing of changing phenomena and focusing attention on stable anchors can feel a little dry, especially when we’re beginning, and it takes a while before the deep joyful and peaceful states we’re hoping for start to reliably happen in meditation. Part of what’s needed as we develop in practice is a brightening of the heart itself, so wounded by all the insults and assaults and simple disappointments of our lives. Love is such a deep part of spiritual awakening that it’s not inaccurate to say, as some traditions do, that the very nature of the universe is love. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to rest in conscious awareness of that love.

So, of course, we practice it! The 4 emotion-based contemplations known as the Divine Abodes, or Divine Abidings (brahmavihāra) are among the most beloved practices in the Buddhist system. They use the feelings of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity as the objects of focus, rather than the breath, and in the style of practice I offer here use a body-centered approach in which we imagine “radiating” the various qualities, like love, or lovingkindness, outward in all directions.

These are meditations that respond to, and work to heal, places in the heart that have been wounded. But they’re also stabilizing meditations themselves, and many dedicated practitioners find the states of immersion (jhāna or samādhi) easier to attain using these meditations than other objects like the breath. These are practices that integrate healing with insight, psychological processing with meditative stabilization.

Like the “trauma” meditations, these can stir the pot, and are considered “purifications” in the sense that they bring to light feelings and stories that need to be felt and processed before we can be free of their influence. Many times the very opposite emotion arises as we practice! Invoking love, I feel hateful. Invoking peace, I feel disturbed. Invoking strength and ease, I feel weak and challenged. All of this is normal, and to be expected. After all, any good cleansing involves contact with dirt!

Be kind to yourself — ok, that’s the whole practice — and patient. There’s little better work we can do than to slowly but persistently invite our heart to open. Open to self-love, love of those close to us, and love of those more distant or different from us. If you come from a Christian background as I do, these meditations can be seen as a way to cultivate in a meditative way what Jesus taught as “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12.31) In the Buddhist system, these meditations point to the potentially infinite reach of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, as our experience of each feeling grows till it seems to encompass the entire universe and everyone in it.

May our hearts be healed, for the end of violence and injustice, and the liberation of the whole world.

Meditation: The 4 brahmavihāra: Radiating mettā in all directions
(Recorded on 8.1.17 at Insight Meditation Satsang, Berkeley, CA)

Meditation: The 4 brahmavihāra: Radiating Compassion in all directions
(Recorded on 8.8.17 at Insight Meditation Satsang, Berkeley, CA)

Meditation: The 4 brahmavihāra: Radiating Appreciation & Joy in all directions
(Recorded on 8.15.17 at Insight Meditation Satsang, Berkeley, CA)

Meditation: The 4 brahmavihāra: Equanimity!
(Recorded on 8.22.17 at Insight Meditation Satsang, Berkeley, CA)

Meditation: Meditation and/is Intimacy
(Recorded on 2.14.17 at Insight Meditation Satsang, Berkeley, CA)

For more about the brahmavihāra, listen to this series of talks.