1. Loving-kindness
Metta is another word for loving-kindness. When a person practices loving-kindness, they actively want the best for others. They wish them well. Jealousy isn't a part of loving-kindness. Jealousy wants others to fail because it's born from a place of insecurity. When a person can actively wish the best for others, this also means that they're doing the work to be healthy and emotionally whole for themselves. Extending the quality of loving-kindness has everything to do with putting self-motive aside to want the best for someone else.
2. Sympathetic Joy …show more content…
In the Buddhist tradition, sympathetic joy is also called Mudita.
It's also known as appreciative joy. It allows a person to experience a true level of happiness and joy because of their desire to see goodwill spread. There's also no selfish motive involved in sympathetic joy. They can appreciate the joy at the moment it happens. A person can understand that sympathetic joy is fleeting. As a result, they can absorb the moment when it comes and enjoy it for what it is. Human nature doesn't allow a person to do this. For some reason, it's natural for people to keep their guard up and assume they can't fully enjoy joy because it is a quickly-passing
emotion.
3. Compassion
So many people are hurting in the world. If you turn on the news and just watch for a few hours, it's easy to become depressed afterward. The magnitude of hurt people are experiencing is unfathomable. Knowing this, it's really crucial for people to experience and share compassion with one another. Compassion involves the ability to care and show kindness to another person. It also involves putting yourself in another person's shoes. If more people made the commitment to treat others the way they want to be treated, the world would be drastically different. Because so many have experienced hurt, they end up repeating the cycle and hurt someone else. When you're able to spread compassion on a consistent basis, you're able to bless people you come in contact with. You never know how long it's been since someone experienced the genuine compassion from someone.
4. Equanimity
Equanimity involves the ability to remain mentally calm and composed during one's experiences in life. In life, it's easy to take a whole lot personally. When someone takes things to heart in this manner, it's really easy to get swayed and develop a sense of emotional instability. When you don't take your successes or failures personally, you're able to maintain a sense of self outside of what you do. In many cases, it involves a deliberate decision to emotionally separate yourself from what you do. An intentional meditative practice can help many people get to this place. When a person practices the quality of equanimity, it doesn't mean that they don't have any feelings toward a situation. They just know how to emotionally compartmentalize their feelings for self-preservation and a higher understanding of the truth.
It is important to cultivate and continue these practice of these qualities because of their ability to change hearts and make people transform for the better. The Brahma-Viharas are important to practice because they lead a person to a road of awakening and higher living.