How Practicing The Brahmaviharas Can Create An Open Heart

This talk discusses how practicing the Brahmaviharas found in Yoga and Buddhism can help make you less guarded and defensive and more open and loving to people around you. The Brahmaviharas refer to 4 boundless qualities of the heart which are loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekha).

Transcript

Hey this is Ishar,

And in today's talk I'll be going over how practicing the Brahma Viharas can make you less guarded and more open with people.

Specifically,

I'll be going over what the Brahma Viharas are,

What may cause defensiveness in one's temperament,

And lastly,

How the Brahma Vihara practice can dissolve defense mechanisms formed by the ego and make you more loving,

Open,

And less guarded.

So what are the Brahma Viharas?

The Brahma Viharas are sublime qualities of the heart that are mentioned in both yoga and in Buddhism.

And if you're interested,

You can look into verse 1.

33 in the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali to see the yogic take on it.

So the Brahma Viharas are certain boundless qualities of the heart.

And the word Brahma refers to the Hindu god Brahma,

And Vihara refers to dwelling.

So if you combine both of these words,

You can think of it as dwelling in a heavenly state or dwelling with the gods.

So pretty nice name.

Now there are four Brahma Viharas.

And the first is loving kindness,

Which is metta in the Pali language,

Or maitri in Sanskrit.

And this word comes from the word mitra,

Which means friend.

So when you're sending loving kindness,

It is essentially sending out goodwill and kindness out to others.

And there are different approaches on sending goodwill and how to do that.

But generally,

One way to do so is to send loving kindness to yourself,

And then out to others.

And there are also different categories of people you can keep in mind as well.

The highest form is to radiate this loving kindness unconditionally out.

But some aids that can be helpful when you're first starting out is to visualize someone being happy,

And also accompanying this by saying a phrase in your mind,

Such as,

May you be happy.

Now the second Brahma Vihara is compassion or kruna.

And this is where you can send goodwill and loving kindness out to those that are suffering.

So typically,

A phrase that you may use when practicing kruna is,

May you be free from suffering.

The third Brahma Vihara is sympathetic joy,

Known as mudita.

And this is where you send goodwill to those that are happy.

And here you are delighting in their happiness.

And when you do so,

You actually borrow from their happiness,

Which is actually a great thing.

It is very similar to a candle lighting a flame of another candle.

So the flame does not get extinguished by lighting another candle.

And here you can use the phrase,

May your happiness continue.

And lastly,

The fourth Brahma Vihara is equanimity or upekka.

Equanimity is the culmination of the three Brahma Viharas that preceded.

And it culminates in the understanding that all beings are responsible for their own actions.

And when this is embodied,

You become less pulled by what is happening all around you,

Because you know that all beings are responsible for their own actions,

And they'll receive the fruits of whatever actions they take.

And this is not a detached in different state,

But one that has its foundation in warmth.

Now let's talk about defensiveness and how that may occur.

So a lot of it can have to do with how you grew up.

So our environment,

And also our relationships with people early on can shape our view and cause us to be very defensive.

And this can happen for a lot of different reasons.

So one could be,

You just had a hostile upbringing,

As maybe there's a lot of stress and cortisol in the people around you,

Or you're in an unsafe environment,

Where people are fighting,

Arguing with each other,

There may have been a lot of stress and your physical and emotional needs are not being met.

Perhaps there's also some abuse going on.

So it could be a lot of different things can go with it.

And this can color or tint the way we interact with others.

Also,

Some of the defensiveness can be heritable.

So if you look into psychology's theory on this,

If you are very high in the trait called neuroticism,

About 50% of that trait is inherited from your family.

So that can also contribute if your family's very reactive,

Stressed out.

You can also develop that.

And having high levels of neuroticism could have actually helped.

The reason why it's there is it would have helped our ancestors survive.

There's a lot of threats around,

You needed someone to be very hyper vigilant of these threats.

But again,

We can reduce neuroticism through meditation.

And another thing that can contribute to this defensiveness is conditioning.

So we have a very strong sense of ego,

Which is a constructive sense of self that clings on and attaches meaning to different forms.

Like it's kind of like a independent doer,

If you will.

When we focus in on this and kind of make this very strong,

There can be certain things that put up barriers between ourselves and others.

So a few examples could be an over-focus on oneself compared to others.

There could be things like arrogance or an excess focus on externals such as money,

Status,

Power,

Or being right or controlling things and people,

Or having very strong attachments,

Being very isolated,

And generally maybe a bit suspicious of other people.

And over time,

As you start to do the inner healing work and also meditate in addition and implement some of these loving qualities of the heart from the Brahma Viharas,

You'll notice your relationships with other people also begin to change.

And I'll actually talk to you about how your relationships may function when operating from this defensive structure,

From my own life actually,

From personal experiences,

And how your experience of people changes when you practice the Brahma Viharas.

So I can definitely say that at least for the first 30 years of my life,

I didn't really understand how coming from an immense place of defensiveness caused by ego conditioning and also traumas put a lot of distance between myself and other people.

So some examples of some of these qualities would be being negative,

Being guarded,

Putting on a persona.

And this was something I've done as well when I had created a YouTube channel.

And it was about branding instead of just being an authentic human being sharing experiences.

I tried to be super self-realized when avoiding all my flaws and mistakes.

Also not trusting others,

Allowing others to get to know you could be also a form of putting this barrier.

Being arrogant,

Focusing on appearance and looking good versus having an authentic connection with another human being.

And when you kind of live in this way,

You'll find that your inner self is actually starved.

And what the Brahma Vihara practices do is that they soften these layers and it starts to heal some of these aspects and also dissolve it.

So diving into the first Brahma Vihara,

If you recall,

Is loving kindness,

Which is goodwill and kindness for yourself and other people.

When you start to practice this in your meditation consistently,

One change you'll notice is that you begin to appear more approachable and friendly.

So whereas other people may have avoided you before,

If you were very defensive before,

They may actually look forward to your presence now.

And this is something that the Buddha had noticed.

So in the Metta Sutta,

The Buddha says that one of the benefits of loving kindness is that the practitioner becomes dear to humans and non-humans.

And in my experience,

I found this to be true,

Where when I started practicing this extensively,

I noticed that different dogs would come up and approach me,

Whereas they probably didn't before.

And anecdotally,

I noticed other people were more friendly and receptive towards me as well.

And this can be very profound because it changes the experience of the world.

Because the world is like a mirror,

So what we put out is also what we reap as well.

So when you're planting different seeds of anger and negativity and being guarded,

The world appears to be very hostile because different people and things around you will reflect that back at you.

So when you're angry towards someone,

You'll notice that they may become defensive or angry back.

Or if you're very judgmental and critical,

Other people may avoid you or they may lash back out.

But now if you are changing that energy of giving out more peace and kindness out to others,

You'll notice that your existence becomes more relaxed,

More kind,

People want to associate with you,

And your viewpoint of the world and how you experience it changes.

So the next thing is that the combination of the subsequent qualities following loving kindness,

Which if you recall,

Is compassion,

Sympathetic joy,

And equanimity.

When you start to embody this and start to experience these qualities in your meditation and also day to day in your life,

You start to realize that we're all in this together.

So we're all human beings sharing this experience in the world together.

And there's a feeling of togetherness versus separateness and separation,

Which is experienced when you are viewing the world through a defensive standpoint.

And to give an example of how this feeling of togetherness is created,

When you're practicing the brahma yuharas and you notice that others are upset,

You wish the best for them.

But you also realize that we all suffer and this comes from the nature of compassion.

And when you're practicing sympathetic joy,

You rejoice in others' happiness.

And we want their happiness to continue,

As opposed to the opposite quality of being jealous,

Or envious,

Or trying to one up another person.

And when we practice equanimity,

We start to see that we are sharing this human experience.

And hopefully,

If you've gone along a path enough,

You will examine your own actions and your past actions stemming from unwholesome states,

Such as hatred,

Or being angry,

And having very strong desires that have caused suffering to others in the world.

And you start to recognize this,

And also see this behavior in others.

So you realize that others are also going through different things,

And they may be suffering as well.

So compassion starts to rise instead of judgment.

So when you're coming from a place of being defensive,

You start to judge others for their unwholesome behaviors.

But when you have a bit of peace and separation,

You only wish for the best and you have compassion,

If anything,

So the heart starts to open up.

And you hope that other people will also see this and recognize the consequences of their actions.

And you hope for them to change,

But you realize that you can't change them,

Only they can do it.

And this is where that part,

The last factor of equanimity comes in.

Another thing that becomes quite apparent when you go from this defensive place to a more open and loving place,

Is that people who are happy,

Don't want to cause suffering to others.

And they actually don't feel good about it when they do.

So it is only because of unawareness,

Ignorance,

Unwise views,

Due to conditioning and other things.

And this is like the energy known as tamas in yoga.

It's only when these energies are very strong,

Where people are just unaware of their actions,

That they continuously cause suffering for themselves and others.

They don't realize it,

So they keep doing it.

So generally,

As your mindfulness increases in your practice,

You start to become more aware of this.

So this is how you start to change from the inside out.

And as the quality of compassion,

Again,

The second brahmavihara starts to increase,

You can now be in a good position where you can be a safe refuge for others in this life.

Because you realize what you have gone through,

And you would not like other people to go through the same thing.

So this is where empathy is developed.

And this is also alluded to if you study Mahayana Buddhism,

For example,

Where there's this ideal of bodhisattva.

Or when you look into Zen,

For example,

A Buddha comes back into the market,

And they are freely giving after going through a journey.

So it's kind of like a hero's journey,

In a sense,

Where you recognize suffering in yourself,

And you want to alleviate it to others.

And you also become a safe refuge for other people.

You kind of want to help them get rid of their suffering in any way you can.

So that's what I'll leave you with.

And let me know in the comments how practicing the brahmaviharas has a positive effect on your life and has changed your relationships with other people.

Thank you.