Regard them all With Deep-Felt Love
76. {1}’And he lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of Love, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of Love, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.
77. ‘Just, Vâsettha, as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard–and that without difficulty–in all the four directions; even so of all things that have shape or life, there is not one that he passes by or leaves aside, but regards them all with mind set free, and deep-felt love.
‘Verily this, Vâsettha, is the way to a state of union with Brahmâ.
78. ‘And he lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of pity{1}, . . . sympathy{1}, . . . equanimity{1}, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world, above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of pity, . . . sympathy, . . . equanimity, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure.
79. ‘Just, Vâsettha, as a mighty trumpeter makes himself heard–and that without difficulty–in all the four directions; even so of all things that have shape or life, there is not one that he passes by or leaves aside, but regards them all with mind set free, and deep-felt pity, . . . sympathy, . . . equanimity.
‘Verily this, Vâsettha, is the way to a state of union with Brahmâ.’
{1. These paragraphs occur frequently; see, inter alia, Mahâ-Sudassana Sutta II, 8, in my ‘Buddhist Suttas’ (S. B. E.). It will be seen from ‘Buddhism.’ pp. 170, 171, that these meditations play a great part in later Buddhism, and occupy very much the place that prayer takes in Christianity. A fifth, the meditation on Impurity, has been added, at what time I do not know, before the last. These four (or five) are called the Brahma Vihâras, and the practice of them leads, not to Arahatship, but to rebirth in the Brahmâ-world.}