Christina Feldman, a co-founder of Gaia House in Devon, England, guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, co-founder and teacher of the Bhodi Institute in England, and author of several dharma books, has provided us with a beautiful, poetic guide to these four practices. Within the pages of Boundless Heart: The Buddhist Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity, Feldman unpacks metta (loving kindness), karuna, (compassion), mudita (appreciative joy) and upekkha (equanimity), giving us clear guidelines for how each is to be understood and cultivated in our meditation practice and enacted in everyday life.

The four brahma vihara are not simply useful add-ons to mindfulness or insight practice. Although they are frequently taught as concentration practices, they are actually core mindfulness practices in and of themselves. Furthermore, these qualities are latent in all individuals but may need encouragement to actualize. Feldman addresses "the myth of authenticity" to which we all fall prey. That is, we are convinced that we need to directly and genuinely experience an emotion or state in order to give it honest expression in our behavior. Yet, she reminds us, qualities such as kindness and compassion may not emerge unless actively cultivated. We do not only practice mindfulness when clarity of mind sneaks up on us, we set aside time to actively nurture present moment awareness. So it is with the brahma viharas. Through active practice these states become internalized and accessible. We are always practicing and enacting something in each and every moment, and with practice, we are far more likely to enact the four beautiful qualities of the heart and mind.

The brahma vihara are not ends in themselves. Friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity are relational qualities to be developed so that our interactions with others are free from strife. Feldman reminds us that the brahma viharas are fundamental ways of seeing the world. Their importance is that they imply and encourage a thoughtfulness for the other, a concern for the well being others, concern about their success, their happiness, their ability to do well even in the face of adversity.

In addition, Feldman emphasizes, these are practices that pertain to the self as well as the other. So when we generate these states in relation to our own inner conflict, our own dukkha, we develop a genuine wellspring from which to draw when the stress of world  comes to bear on us. She notes that, "the cultivation of metta equally invites us to learn what it means to be a friend to ourselves, to befriend all aspects of our experience in body and mind, to protect ourselves and remind ourselves of what is beneficial in the pathways we follow in our minds, to be generous with ourselves, forsaking the harmful patterns of self directed ill will  and enmity" (p.39).

Feldman gives clear and detailed guidelines for how to practice with the four brahma vihara. Although these approaches are likely familiar to us (repetition of phrases that guide us toward the experience of each experience) her wording of the phrases, and descriptions of the insights that can arise, are fresh and inspiring.

So much of this practice of mindfulness depends on the quality of heart with which we see what we see in meditation and everyday life. There is a lot of softening and kindness that must go along with opening to dukkha. There is much compassion needed when we approach the suffering of the world. And the experience of joy soothes the heart burned by strife and conflict. Equanimity is the cornerstone of the whole enterprise. We need a little to practice mindfulness at all, we need a lot to achieve a more awakened state. Turning toward rather than away from dukkha, requires tenacity and courage, and this is precisely what these practices produce. Christina Feldman's Boundless Heart provides us with a lovely addition to the literature on these four boundless and immeasurable states.