Cattāri Brahmavihārā

I’ve set up my Google calendar to cycle through each of the Brahma Viharas and today just happens to be mudita day. In the unlikely event that anyone happens to stumble upon this and not know what it is here is a link:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/various/wheel170.html

Anyhow, I’ve always had difficulty trying to practice mudita formally (not to say that I’ve had any grand successes informally) but today I may have chanced upon a method that works for me. Please keep in mind that I am not a teacher and that this blog is primarily to serve as an impetus to record my own progress in working with the brahma viharas so please take everything here with a grain of salt. So, in brief, the method I worked with todays s as follows:

Using the traditional (commentarial method found in the Visuddhimagga) method of cycling through oneself, benefactor, friend, neutral person and enemy I decided to try finding three good qualities or possessions of each person.  I then took to reciting these mentally until a feeling of joy and appreciation arose before preceeding to the next. I did this for about 20 minutes and enjoyed a definite brightening of the mind-so much so in fact that when I opened my eyes the darkened room in which I sat at first seemed much brighter (this could have been attributable to any number of things but it was interesting nonetheless.

There’s just one thing I want to highlight for future reference: I discovered in the course of trying out this technique that I was able to appreciate a skillful intention as much as an already arisen or developed quality. For example, I may have some reservations about the untarnished nature of all of my precepts and, as a result, I may not be able to sincerely feel as much joy from reflecting on my track record. However, when I turn my attention to my commitment to the precepts and the fact that it is a constantly renewed reality in my life I was able to cultivate a lot of joy and appreciation. I’m glad I remembered to put that in here because otherwise I may have forgotten it for whole lifetimes. Phhew!

Okay, so that’s my inaugural post. Tomorrow is Upekkha day (one which is even harder for me than mudita) so it should be interesting. Sabbe sattaa sukhitaa hontu!