Dear friends,

As the year draws toward its close, many of us find ourselves looking back. Cool air and rain have returned here in the Sierra foothills, the evenings are coming earlier, and the holiday season is upon us. It’s a time when we naturally turn inward and reflect on where we’ve been this year, and on how our practice is showing up in the way we listen, the way we respond when things get hard, and the way we relate to one another.

Since April we’ve been turning toward the brahmavihāras one at a time, letting compassion, joy, and equanimity grow from the ground of loving-friendliness. We explored how they arise from causes and conditions, learned to recognize their near enemies, looked through the separate self, and followed Śāntideva to his conclusion that suffering has no owner. Studying each quality on its own has been useful, the way a musician practices scales and chords with diligence. November can be the time when the practice becomes music.

This month our theme is Integration: Being the Brahmavihāras.

One love, four expressions

Buddhaghosa, the fifth century commentator, offers an image I love in the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification), Chapter 9. Picture a mother with four children. One is very small, one is sick, one is in the bloom of youth, and one is grown and busy with a life of their own. For the little child she wishes healthy growth. For the sick child she wishes recovery. For the young child in their prime she wishes that the good fortune lasts. And for the grown child, she trusts and lets them find their own way.



That’s mettā, karuṇā, muditā, and upekkhā, and it’s plainly one mother with one love. The warmth is the same in every case. It simply takes the shape each child needs. Goodwill is the basic warmth itself. Meeting pain, it becomes compassion. Meeting someone’s good fortune, it becomes joy. Meeting what lies beyond our control, it settles into equanimity, a love wise enough to let life be as it is.

You may have noticed this over the past months. Each time we worked closely with one quality, the others just show up too. Equanimity kept compassion from drowning, and compassion kept equanimity warm. Joy kept goodwill bright, and goodwill gave joy somewhere generous to land. They each interweave and intertwine and support one another.

A place to live

The word vihāra means a dwelling. It’s the same word used for monasteries throughout Asia. So the brahmavihāras are the sublime abodes, and the image evokes something settled, comfy, a place to dwell.

The Buddha says as much at the close of the Mettā Sutta. He asks us to keep this awareness alive whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, for as long as we’re awake, and he calls that the sublime abiding right here in this life. In monasteries and dharma centers, you can see what this looks like in practice. The kindness shows up in how a monk sweeps a path or a practiced yogi performs their work meditation. The Brahmavihāras radiate through every aspect of life. 

Cultivated and uncovered

All year we’ve practiced with phrases, intentions, and a little bit of effort. Something else has been happening alongside it, though. As we cultivated these qualities, we were also uncovering them. Mingyur Rinpoche often compares our basic goodness to the sun, which keeps shining whether or not clouds are passing in front of it. Tsoknyi Rinpoche calls the warmth at the bottom of the heart essence love, a simple okayness that’s present before we try to feel anything at all.

This is where September’s teaching on anattā shows up. When the self that grasps and defends relaxes even just a little, what’s left behind is naturally warm and naturally spacious. Ajahn Chah liked to point students back to the one who knows, the plain knowing that’s already here underneath every mood. Rest there long enough and you find that it cares. Integration, then, looks less like gaining four achievements and more like living closer to that ground, letting warmth respond to what the moment is asking for.

In the formal practice

The purpose of this meditation is to begin noticing directly the natural response of the heart. 

Settle with the breath or with a meditative object you’re comfortable with. Spend a few minutes with the mettā phrases you’ve connected to this year, and then, when ready, set the words down and rest in the feeling they leave behind, simply breathing mettā. Let the mind be relaxed. When a thought of suffering drifts through, notice how the warmth leans toward compassion on its own. When a thought of happiness arises, notice it brighten into joy. When something comes up that you simply can’t fix, feel it widen into equanimity. Each time, see if you can sense the one heart doing all of it. When nothing particular arises, rest in the warmth itself.

In daily life

Take this practice into your days. As you move through your life, notice the shape your heart takes with each person you encounter. There’s the relative with the worrying diagnosis, the friend who got a promotion, the sibling whose choices you’ve long since stopped trying to change, but who you still have a lot of love for. Feel how the same care becomes compassion, then joy, then a patient letting be. When the heart closes, notice that too, kindly. Meeting our own contraction with warmth is the Brahmavihāras at work as well.

May the qualities we’ve practiced all year become the way we live. May we meet each person in the shape of care they need. And as the year draws toward an end, may our warmth transform into natural generosity.

With love, 

Adam 

Resident Guiding Teacher

Mountain Stream Meditation