Brahmavihara

Brahmavihara
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The four Brahmavihāras are a series of virtues and a Buddhist meditation practices designed to cultivate those virtues. Brahmavihāra is a term in Pāli and Sanskrit meaning

 

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Legacy
Although this form of these ideas has a Buddhist origin, the ideas themselves are in no way sectarian. The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement uses them in public meditation events in Sri Lanka bringing together Buddhists, Hindu, Muslims, and Christians. Rudyard Kipling's inspirational poem If refers to the idea of Upekkha in calling Triumph and Disaster impostors.

The Brahmaviharā in Early Buddhism


In the Subha Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya set of scriptures, Buddha Shakyamuni is asked the way to fellowship/companionship/communion with Brahma. Shakyamuni Buddha replies that he personally knows the world of Brahma and the way to it, and explains the meditative method for reaching it by using an analogy of the resonance of the conch shell of the Ashtamangala (Sanskrit):

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