Brahmavihara

The brahmavihāras (sublime attitudes, lit. "abodes of brahma") are a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables (Sanskrit: apramāṇa, Pāli: appamaññā). The Brahma-viharas are:

According to the Metta Sutta, cultivation of the four immeasurables has the power to cause the practitioner to be reborn into a "Brahmā realm" (Pāli: Brahmaloka).

The Brahma-viharas, along with meditative tradition associated with Brahma-vihara, are also found in pre-Buddha and post-Buddha Vedic and Sramanic literature.

Brahmavihāra may be parsed as "Brahmā" and "vihāra"; which is often rendered into English as "sublime" or "divine abodes".

Apramāṇa, usually translated as "the immeasurables," means "boundlessness, infinitude, a state that is illimitable". When developed to a high degree in meditation, these attitudes are said to make the mind "immeasurable" and like the mind of the loving Brahmā (gods).

Other translations:

The four Brahma-vihara are:

The Brahma-vihara are a pre-Buddhist concept, to which the Buddhist tradition gave its own interpretation. The Digha Nikaya asserts the Buddha to be calling the Brahmavihara as "that practice", and he then contrasts it with "my practice" as follows:

...that practice [namely, the mere cultivation of love and so forth, according to the fourfold instructions] is conducive not to turning away, nor to dispassion, nor to quieting, nor to cessation, nor to direct knowledge, nor to enlightenment, nor to nirvana, but only to rebirth in the world of Brahma.

...my practice is conducive to complete turning away, dispassion, cessation, quieting, direct knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana – specifically the eightfold noble path (...)

According to Gombrich, the Buddhist usage of the brahma-vihāra originally referred to an awakened state of mind, and a concrete attitude toward other beings which was equal to "living with Brahman" here and now. The later tradition took those descriptions too literally, linking them to cosmology and understanding them as "living with Brahman" by rebirth in the Brahma-world. According to Gombrich, "the Buddha taught that kindness - what Christians tend to call love - was a way to salvation.

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