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What Do the Suttas Actually Have to Say About the Brahma Viharas - Leigh Brasington

The following talk was given by Leigh Brasington at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on February 22, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

What Do the Suttas Actually Have to Say About the Brahma Viharas

Introduction

What do the suttas actually say about the brahmavihāras¹? I assume most of you have heard talks on the brahmavihāras. Back in the early 2000s, I was involved in an email discussion about how far brahmavihāra practice can take you on the spiritual path. Does it only lead to rebirth in the Brahma realms? Can it take you to full awakening? Can it take you only to the third stage of awakening?

There were lots of views and opinions, as often happens, and there was no resolution. I had to say, "Well, I can find suttas that say all of that." Recently, I wrote a program that allows me to build an online database of topics, texts, people, and places in the suttas, and I have over 150 links now for various topics. One of the first topics I built was the brahmavihāras. What are all the suttas that contain the brahmavihāras? It turns out there are 38 of them. I started looking, and then I realized I should do mettā by itself, and I should do karuṇā by itself. So, I built that database and thought, "Okay, now I know what they say. I should maybe teach a course on that." So here we are.

The Four Brahmavihāras

The four brahmavihāras are mettā, karuṇā, muditā, and upekkhā. The actual Pali word we're referring to is brahmavihāra. It's a compound of the two words brahma and vihāra. Remember, Pali was an oral language, so they didn't have one word or two words; they had syllables. When you're listening to me, you automatically break up what I'm saying into words. They didn't have to say a word and indicate what it is; you just hear all these syllables and break it up in your mind. That's what they did when they wrote down the Pali. They just wrote down the syllables one after another because this had been chanted for centuries. Later, people came along and broke it up into words, and they broke up brahmavihāra into one word. This makes sense because it's a concept. Brahma is a concept, vihāra is a concept, but brahmavihāra is somewhat different. In the West, this has morphed into "brahma vihara" as two words, and the long "a" was dropped because in English we don't have diacritical marks. Unless I'm referring to the Pali, I will use "brahma vihara" without diacritics and capitalized, because that's probably what most people are familiar with.

What do each of these mean? Brahma means "divine" or "an inhabitant of the higher heavens," and vihāra means "abode." This is from the Pali-English Dictionary (PED) created in the early 20th century. In the modern online Digital Pali Dictionary (DPD), we find the definition where brahma means "divine" or "holy," and vihāra means "dwelling" or "residence." So we can translate this phrase as the "four divine abodes," "four divine dwellings," or "four divine abidings." These are the mental states that the Buddha recommended we hang out in. My teacher, Ayya Khema², said these are the only ones that he was really recommending.

There are 38 suttas, or groups of suttas, that contain all four brahmavihāras. As for individual occurrences, mettā shows up in 87 suttas, karuṇā shows up in 53 suttas, and muditā in 41. However, muditā by itself—without all four brahmavihāras—only shows up in three suttas. Upekkhā shows up in 228 suttas, but that includes references to the seven factors of awakening, descriptions of the third and fourth jhāna³, and other uses outside of the brahmavihāras.

Mettā (Unconditional Love)

Common translations we hear for mettā are loving-kindness, loving-friendliness, love, friendliness, benevolence, goodwill, amity, and sympathy. The PED gives us love, amity, sympathy, friendliness, and active interest in others. The DPD gives goodwill towards, friendliness to, and benevolence for.

Each of these four brahmavihāras has a far enemy and a near enemy. The far enemy is the exact opposite. For mettā, the far enemy is ill will or hatred. We find these concepts in the Mahā Rāhulovāda Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 62), although the exact phrase "far enemy" doesn't show up there—that's from the later commentaries.

The near enemy is something that looks a bit like the brahmavihāra, but it has problems. For mettā, the near enemies are attachment, sentimentality, clinginess, or conditional love. Part of the teaching on mettā is to recognize the far enemy, but in particular, to recognize when you're caught in the near enemy. You may think you're in a healthy mental state, but usually, there's far too much ego involved.

My preferred translation is unconditional love. Unconditional love is love given with no strings attached. It means you love someone simply because they are someone. This is the same as the Greek agape, in contrast to eros (erotic love) or philia (brotherly love). Love does seem to be a loaded word in Western culture. We confuse love and like. People say, "I love my new car." No, you don't love your new car; you might like it a lot.

(Note: The "unconditional" part has nothing to do with the bad translation of asaṅkhata as "the unconditioned." Asaṅkhata is the negative past participle of saṅkhāra, meaning "without being concocted or fabricated." Love is fabricated. When you love someone, you are fabricating this in your mind. It is simply loving someone with no conditions.)

Karuṇā (Compassion and Kindness)

Common translations for karuṇā are compassion and mercy. Interestingly enough, the *'ka'*—like in karma or kara—means action. So karuṇā is love in action, especially love and action in the face of suffering. That's where compassion comes in.

Sometimes all you can do is feel compassionate towards someone who's suffering, and there's not anything more you can do. Sometimes, there is something you can do. If it's true compassion, you do what you can, hopefully without being attached to the results. Remember the movie Do the Right Thing? It's good advice: do the right thing. Then I read an article by Joanna Macy that said, "Don't be attached to the results." I put the two together: Do the right thing, and don't be attached to the results. In the face of suffering, compassion is the right thing to do.

The far enemy of karuṇā is cruelty. The near enemy is pity.

There's another important Pali word: anukampā, often translated as sympathy or compassion, but a much better translation suggested by Gil Fronsdal is "care." You can practice anukampā toward anyone, whether they're suffering or not. Similarly, I like to translate karuṇā broadly as kindness, because you can practice kindness toward anyone. If someone is suffering, you act with compassion to alleviate it. If someone is not suffering, you just act with kindness.

Bhikkhu Sujato translates both anukampā and karuṇā as "compassion" across the suttas, and there's another word, anuddayā, which is also translated as compassion or sympathy. While translating them all as compassion is common, they are different words, which is why it is helpful to look at the underlying Pali on SuttaCentral.

Muditā (Appreciative Joy)

Muditā is often translated as sympathetic joy, empathetic joy, appreciative joy, or rejoicing. The PED describes it as "soft-hearted, kindliness, sympathy." The DPD says mudita (without the long 'a') is the past participle of being happy or glad, literally "become soft." With the long 'a' (muditā), it's feminine, meaning happiness, appreciation, or sympathetic joy.

The far enemies are envy, jealousy, and discontent. The near enemy is identification or hypocrisy—saying "Oh, that's so nice that happened to you," while secretly thinking, "Why didn't that happen to me?"

My preferred translation is appreciative joy. Sympathetic or empathetic joy implies joy only for others. Yet, if we look at the suttas, we find that you can—and should—appreciate your own joy and good fortune. This is extremely important, especially considering the low self-esteem epidemic in Western civilization. If you can truly appreciate how much good fortune you have, you won't have such low self-esteem. You realize the world is actually treating you fairly nicely.

Upekkhā (Equanimity)

Upekkhā is often translated as equanimity, even-mindedness, hedonic neutrality, or indifference. It is literally derived from upa (near) and ikkhati (to see or look at), meaning "looking on."

The DPD describes it as mental poise, mental balance, equanimity, equipoise, non-reactivity, and composure. I think the DPD does a much better job here. If you're "looking on," you are paying careful attention. You are fully engaged, but you have a sense of being in balance.

The far enemies are panic, getting upset, freaking out, over-exuberance, and repulsion. The near enemy is apathy or indifference. It looks a lot like equanimity—you aren't shaken by terrible things—but only because you simply don't care.

Q&A: Exploring the Brahma Viharas

Question: Would you connect muditā to gratitude practice, since gratitude is so widely taught right now?

Leigh Brasington: Yes, I would say that gratitude is an outgrowth of practicing muditā for yourself. You recognize the good stuff, and you're grateful to the people or the situation that allowed joy to arise in your life. You appreciate the good things. Muditā is the doorway to gratitude.

Question: I've heard upekkhā translated using the preposition "looking over" rather than "looking on," implying a cosmic view where you aren't tangled up in suffering. Could it be "over"?

Leigh Brasington: I think that's a mistranslation. If it's true upekkhā, you're looking on; you're fully engaged. You're not standing back at a distance. That implies a stance of indifference. Upekkhā means you are fully engaged and clearly seeing what is going on, but it's not knocking you out of balance. You may be displeased by what you're seeing, but you're not panicking, nor are you indifferent. The Pali literally means "looking on."

Question: The Buddha taught that life contains suffering (dukkha⁴). Should karuṇā just mean acting to reduce suffering?

Leigh Brasington: The Buddha never said "life is suffering." He said suffering happens. Dukkha happens. But it's not all the time, hopefully. There are lots of times in my life where there is joy or calm. If I meet somebody who is joyful or calm, I can still be kind to them. Kindness broadens the range of karuṇā. If you encounter someone who is suffering, you act with compassion to alleviate it.

Question: If someone was obtaining joy through unwholesome means, would you still practice muditā for them?

Leigh Brasington: No. The only joy that can be appreciated is joy obtained through wholesome means. If somebody is getting their joy through unwholesome means, it will cause karmic consequences. It's actually a source of future unpleasantness. There is no reason to take joy in anyone else's ill-gotten joy. If somebody tells a misogynistic joke, you don't laugh. But if they tell a great, wholesome joke, you appreciate it.

Question: How do you direct mettā to difficult public figures or politicians? It feels very hard to wish them happiness.

Leigh Brasington: Ayya Khema offered different phrases that are really helpful for difficult people. Instead of saying "May you be happy," she suggested:

• "May you be free of enmity."
• "May you be free of hurtfulness."
• "May you be free of troubles of mind and body."
• "May you be able to protect your happiness." (Because only happiness gained through wholesome activities can be protected).

For your least favorite politician, you can absolutely wish that they be free from cruelty, hurtfulness, and mental troubles, because their mental troubles are probably why they are acting that way in the first place. You hope they find a way out of the morass of dukkha that is causing so many problems for themselves and others.

Question: When I practice the brahmavihāras, it always feels like the Buddha is teaching that there is no "self" anyway. So am I really sending it to "others"?

Leigh Brasington: From an ultimate level, there are no selves. There are just streams of dependently arising processes interacting. But since we're not there yet, we have to work with the relative level of "selves." "Myself" needs to be loved, even though it's a fiction, and the other person's "self" needs to be loved. The Buddha spoke sometimes about selves, sometimes about not-self, and sometimes he said the whole idea of conceptualizing existence and non-existence isn't a good idea. But working with the practice on the relative level of selves works quite well.

The Karaniya Metta Sutta

We are quite lucky that we have the Karaniya Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1.8), which tells us in detail what mettā is and how to practice it.

The sutta begins:

"This is what is to be done by one who is skilled in wholesomeness and who seeks the state of peace."

It then lists fifteen conditions or qualities you need to cultivate as a preliminary to finding peace: being able, straight and upright, easy to be admonished (humble and willing to be corrected), mild, flexible, contented, low-maintenance, not overly busy, living lightly, calm, wise, unassuming, and not greedy with supporters.

Then it gives a wonderful piece of advice:

"One would not do the slightest thing that wise people would criticize."

Have you ever done something questionable in secret? Think about it: if wise people found out, would they approve? If they would complain, you probably shouldn't do it. A similar guide is the fourth precept (right speech). If you are about to do something, and if someone asked you about it you would feel compelled to lie, then you shouldn't do it.

The heart of the sutta is this:

"May all be at ease and safe. May all beings be happy. Whatever living beings there are, moving or stationary, omitting none, whether long or large, medium, short or small, seen or unseen, living far away or near, those born or to be born—may all beings be happy."

It is all beings. We want to try and live so that we are not harming anyone.

"One would not defraud another or despise any being anywhere. One would not wish suffering on another because of anger or ill will. As a mother would protect with her life her own child, her only child, so too for all beings, one would cultivate a boundless heart. With love for the whole world, one would cultivate a boundless heart: above, below, and across, unrestricted and friendly, without hostility. Whether standing, walking, seated, or lying down, free from drowsiness, one should sustain this mindfulness. This, they say, is a divine abiding here."

To me, that sounds like it should be the end of the sutta. It's a beautiful hymn to love. There is nothing uniquely "Buddhist" about it; Jesus would be 100% behind this. In fact, I believe it was the original end of the sutta. The final verse appears to be a later addition to make it explicitly Buddhist:

"Avoiding views, virtuous and endowed with insight, one would dispel greed for sense desires, never again returning to a womb."

The poetry meter changes in this final verse, and the phrase "never again returning to a womb" doesn't occur in any other suttas. It limits the universal power of the first nine verses somewhat, but it frames the practice within the Buddhist goal of awakening.

The Benefits of Metta

In the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 8.1 and AN 11.15), the Buddha lists the benefits you can expect when the heart's release by love has been cultivated:

1. You sleep at ease.
2. You wake happily.
3. You don't have bad dreams.
4. Humans love you.
5. Non-humans love you.
6. Deities protect you.
7. You can't be harmed by fire, poison, or blade.
8. Your mind quickly enters concentration (samādhi⁵).
9. Your face is clear and bright.
10. You don't feel lost when you die.
11. If you don't penetrate any higher, you'll be reborn in a realm of divinity (the Brahma realms).

The first few are definitely true. As for the others—deities protecting you, or not being harmed by fire or poison—I don't have the data to get behind that. But certainly, if you are a loving person, you are seen in a completely different way than if you are hateful, and mettā is an excellent access method for right concentration (the jhānas).

Q&A: Rebirth and Immortality Projects

Question: What are your thoughts on rebirth? Is it meant to be taken literally as human birth, or is it more psychological?

Leigh Brasington: This is a huge topic. Did the Buddha actually believe in literal rebirth? I can point you to suttas that indicate he was just teaching it as skillful means. I can point you to suttas that indicate he totally bought it. I can point you to suttas showing it was just part of the culture.

The Buddha taught rebirth to laypeople who didn't have a deep Buddhist background. But to the advanced monks, he taught not-self. If there's nobody there, what is going to be reborn? In the Kaccānagotta Sutta (Saṃyutta Nikāya 12.15), the Buddha says that the world depends on a duality of existence and non-existence, but one with right view does not take a stand on these concepts. In the Mahātaṇhāsaṅkhaya Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 38), the Buddha asks the monks if, by understanding dependent origination, they would run back to the past wondering "Was I in the past?" or "What will I become in the future?" The monks say no.

If you truly understand dependent origination, the question of "What was I?" or "What will I be?" evaporates. It's like asking: "If you fall off the edge of the world, does it hurt?" The question disappears completely when you realize there is no edge of the world. The question of how you will be reborn disappears when the illusion of a solid self disappears.

But the Buddha lived in a culture that held onto their "immortality projects." If he went around threatening people's immortality projects right away, nobody would listen to him long enough to understand the deepest level of the teachings. So, as skillful means, he tapped into the cultural beliefs. People believed in heavens, and he said, "Yeah, but those are impermanent, too. You'll fall back down. This human realm is a good place to practice, so practice now."

Question: What about the Buddha remembering his past lives on the night of his enlightenment?

Leigh Brasington: If you take it literally, the texts say he remembered one life, two lives, up to 100,000 lives, and many eons of world expansion and contraction—all during the first watch of the night, which is four hours. If you do the math, 100,000 lives divided into four hours means he spent about seven seconds remembering each lifetime. He remembered their name, clan, pleasure, pain, food, etc. That's a fraction of a second for each detail. I don't think it is meant to be taken literally.

Stephen Batchelor suggests that the Buddha was realizing that he was not the center of the universe, but rather that he had arisen from a vast web of causes and conditions that came before him, and his actions would ripple out into the future. He was a blip in a huge, ongoing process.

The Tevijja Sutta (The Three Knowledges)

We also see the brahmavihāras taught in the Tevijja Sutta (Dīgha Nikāya 13). The Buddha is talking to two Brahmin students, Vāseṭṭha and Bhāradvāja, who are arguing over which of their teachers' paths actually leads to union with Brahmā.

The Buddha asks them: "Has any Brahmin, or any of their teachers going back seven generations, actually seen Brahmā with their own eyes?" They admit no one has. The Buddha likens them to a queue of blind men leading each other, or someone building a staircase for a house they've never seen, or someone standing on the near shore of a river yelling, "Come here, far shore!"

The Buddha explains that the Brahmins are bound by the five strands of sensual pleasure (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches) and the five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restless remorse, and doubt). Brahmā, on the other hand, is completely free of enmity, ill will, and corruption. How could someone encumbered by hindrances and possessions converge with Brahmā after death?

Vāseṭṭha then asks the Buddha if he knows the path to the company of Brahmā. The Buddha says yes, and lays out the gradual training: hearing the Dhamma, gaining faith, going forth, living restrained by the precepts, guarding the sense doors, remaining mindful and clearly comprehending, being content with little, and abandoning the five hindrances.

Once the hindrances are abandoned, gladness (pāmojja) arises. From gladness comes rapture (pīti). With rapture, the body becomes tranquil (passaddhi). Tranquil in body, one experiences happiness (sukha), and being happy, the mind becomes concentrated (samādhi). This sequence is the pāmojja sequence, which acts as a summary of the four jhānas.

Then comes the brahmavihāra practice:

"One abides pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with mettā. Likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth. So above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to oneself. One abides pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with mettā, abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill will."

He repeats this identically for karuṇā, muditā, and upekkhā.

This directional pervading is the primary way the brahmavihāras are taught as a practice in the early suttas. The use of specific phrases (like "May you be happy") is a later development found in the commentaries, like the Visuddhimagga. The sutta practice is to cultivate a deep-felt sense of the emotion and radiate it outwardly in all directions, like a mighty trumpeter making themselves heard in all four directions without difficulty.

Guided Metta Meditation

(To begin, please put your attention on your breath for a few moments.)

Look into your heart, and you will find a brightly shining sun. A sun with beautiful golden rays that fills you from head to toe.

Now, think of someone you really care about, and let the sun in your heart send its beautiful golden rays to fill that person from head to toe.

Think of other people you care about. Bring them to mind one by one, and fill each of them with the golden rays from the sun in your heart.

Think of your acquaintances: people like your neighbors, your coworkers, people you see in stores and restaurants you frequent. Bring them to mind one by one and fill each of them with the golden rays of the sun in your heart.

Think of someone you find difficult. Let the sun in your heart shine on that person as well.

Let the golden rays from the sun in your heart shine on everybody on this retreat.

And now, let the sun in your heart grow brighter and brighter so that it starts filling your whole neighborhood. Everybody. The dogs, the cats, the squirrels, the birds. Keep opening your heart wider and wider. It fills your town, your city. The golden rays of mettā from your heart start filling the countryside. All the animals out there—deer, insects, rabbits, skunks.

Just keep opening your heart wider and wider. Your love goes out to everybody on the continent. It's getting more and more golden rays from your heart, reaching out all over the world to every living being. Humans, animals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, forests, and fields. Fill them all with the golden light from the center of your heart.

Notice that as these golden rays of love go out from the center of your heart, the very first thing they do is fill you.

May all beings everywhere be happy. May any merit from today's sharing of the dharma be for the benefit and liberation of all beings everywhere.