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Radiating the four brahmavihāras
Daily chants

Radiating the four brahmavihāras

Brahmavihārapharaṇa

Spreading loving-kindness, compassion, gladness and equanimity to all beings — usually chanted to close a session of chanting or meditation.

When it is chanted

Chanted at the end of a chanting session, after meditation, or before sleep. It is longer than the short metta chant because it covers all four qualities.

If you have time, chant it slowly and pause on each part: for loving-kindness think of someone you love, for compassion someone who is struggling, for gladness someone doing well, and for equanimity a situation you can no longer do anything about.

Background

The four brahmavihāras are four attitudes the Buddha taught us to cultivate towards others: loving-kindness, the wish that they be happy; compassion, the wish that they be free from pain; gladness, delight when things go well for them; and equanimity, a steady heart when there is nothing more we can do.

The first three are easy to understand; the last is often misread. The equanimity section — that beings own their own actions — is a reminder to the chanter that we cannot act in anyone else's place, and that the results of an action belong to whoever does it. It is not a verdict that anyone deserves the suffering they are going through. When you have done all you can and it is still not enough, equanimity is what lets you keep helping without breaking.

These four sections are a Thai temple composition drawn from the brahmavihāra teachings in the suttas rather than a single passage lifted from the canon.

Pali

  1. Sabbe sattā averā hontu May all beings be free from enmity.
  2. Sabbe sattā abyāpajjhā hontu May all beings be free from harm.
  3. Sabbe sattā anīghā hontu May all beings be free from distress.
  4. Sabbe sattā sukhī attānaṃ pariharantu May all beings keep themselves in well-being.
  5. Sabbe sattā sabbadukkhā pamuccantu May all beings be released from every kind of suffering.
  6. Sabbe sattā laddhasampattito mā vigacchantu May all beings not be parted from the good that has come to them.
  7. Sabbe sattā kammassakā Beings own their own actions.
  8. Kammadāyādā kammayonī They inherit their actions; their actions are where they come from.
  9. Kammabandhū kammapaṭisaraṇā Their actions are their kin; their actions are what they stand on.
  10. Yaṃ kammaṃ karissanti kalyāṇaṃ vā pāpakaṃ vā Whatever action they do, good or bad,
  11. Tassa dāyādā bhavissanti of that action they will be the heirs.
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Where it comes from in the Tipiṭaka

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