Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute Sunday-morning session, Khensur Rinpoche opens by warning against approaching meditation the way one browses a department store — observing from a distance rather than letting the mind be genuinely transformed. That image sets up his systematic introduction to the four immeasurables: equanimity, love, compassion, and joy. He gives particular weight to equanimity as the indispensable foundation, likening an uneven mind to a rutted field where rain collects in patches rather than nourishing an even crop. Each immeasurable is then unpacked through four progressive attributes — aspiration, sympathetic joy, exceptional resolve, and request for the teacher’s blessing — applied in turn to all four. The session closes with a short guided practice running through the full sequence.
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File: The 4 Immeasurables 1a Sunday Morning.mp3
UUID: a3cabbd1-ba76-4868-96b7-fab2f9ff7e21
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The 4 Immeasurables (Khensur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.3 minutes
Words: ~1,962
We will develop a positive result. So what do we mean by a positive attitude? It is the kind hearted attitude which is not seeking happiness only for oneself alone, but not only trying to eliminate one’s own suffering alone. But seeing that others and oneself are exactly the same in wanting happiness and that one suffers seeks to bring about both the happiness of oneself and others and to eliminate the suffering of both oneself and others. So kind hearted attitude is included within the thoughts to free others from their suffering, which is compassion, and to bring them happiness, which is love.
But not only that, that I myself take responsibility to bring this about. So, if we should develop the motivation as has been expressed through these qualities of love and compassion and responsibility that in order to bring this about, in fact, in order to eliminate all my various faults and to bring the consummation of all my excellent qualities, I am going to meditate on mindfulness of breathing. And we do that for the next twenty minutes. So today I’m going to explain the way of meditating on the four immeasurables. The four immeasurables being immeasurable equanimity, immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, and immeasurable joy.
It’s an extremely great benefit to meditate on these. So these four can be easily meditated upon, and it’s very beneficial to one’s mind, and there are extremely great results arising from them. So if we were to meditate on these well, then it would be extremely beneficial. We would achieve a very positive state of mind. Essentially what we are trying to do is to transform our mind.
Through transformation of our mind, we achieve various positive results. We create a great deal of creative potential and skillful actions. If we don’t transform our mind, no matter what we do, there’s not much benefit. It doesn’t have any power. So at the time of meditating on the four immeasurable, it shouldn’t be done in the same way that we might go shopping in a supermarket or in a department store.
We’re just out browsing and looking around window shopping. Look at the nice shoes, look at the nice dress, look at the nice suit. We sort of stand apart from what it is we are looking at or if we walk into a room we say, Oh there is the table, there is the flowers, there is a fan, there is the lights. We just act as if we’re observers or spectators. So how are we to proceed in meditating on these four immeasurables?
That we are trying to transform the very nature of our mind into each of these four immeasurables. That is to say we are trying to change our mind. Our mind becomes totally involved, not as a spectator, but its very nature is transformed. This is the great benefit to be derived from meditating. So we begin with the meditation of the four immeasurables, the first of these four immeasurables, that is immeasurable equanimity and this has four, the meditation on equanimity has four attributes.
So the means of proceeding and meditating on immeasurable equanimity is the development of these four characteristics of equanimity in that it has four parts. It has the part of aspiration, joy, exceptional resolve, and request. What do we mean by equanimity? There are various types of equanimity. There is for example equanimous feelings, but here specifically in immeasurable equanimity, we mean an equanimity which is a sense of equipoise between far and near.
That is to say we usually have attachment for those we hold that are near to us, that is to say our loved ones. We usually have aversion or hatred toward those who we hold at a distance, that is to say our enemies. So equanimity here is a freedom from holding our enemies at a distance and our loved ones close. That is to say we regard our enemies and our loved ones in the same manner, neither holding one close and the other distant. If we were to hold those, we would be attached to those we hold near, then we would not have equanimity nor if we were to hold at a distance those we have aversion, then we would not have equanimity.
So both our enemies and our loved ones are exactly the same in wanting happiness and not wanting to suffer. There’s no difference. So seeking to develop the mind which holds them equally as important. So if we look at these various categories of sentient beings from our own side, they have all treated us the same. They have all, not only, they have all in previous lives acted as our mother, acted as our father, they have all been our loved ones at some time.
So from our own side they have all treated us exactly the same and so we hold them in the same regard whether we neither hold them close nor distant. If we think of them in this manner and hold them all the same, then we will have an attitude of equality with regard to them. So in in freeing ourselves from holding some near with attachment and others that are distant through our aversion, we begin with the thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if sentient beings were free of holding some close and others distant? And this is the beginning of the immeasurable in terms of wish or aspiration. And then we go on to think, may they be free from the attachment which holds some near and hatred which holds others at a distance.
And this is the attribute of joy with respect to equanimity. And we go on in the intensity of the equanimity to the level of the attribute of exceptional resolve where we take responsibility thinking that I myself will free them from their attachment which holds some near and their hatred which holds others at a distance. And this is the exceptional resolve attribute of equanimity. Then having developed this exceptional resolve which was expressed in the attitude that I myself will free sentient beings from the attachment holding some near and the hatred of holding others at a distance. We then go on to ask for assistance in order to bring this about in fact.
We make requests to our spiritual teacher and the Three Jewels asking them for their blessings and requesting to be empowered to bring this about in fact. This is the fourth attribute of immeasurable equanimity, that of requesting. So these are the four attributes of the method of cultivating immeasurable equanimity. By again and again familiarizing ourselves with these four parts of equanimity, then our practice will go well and we can actually get some sort of experience immeasurable equanimity. Once we have done that, then we can go on to meditations and teachings on immeasurable love, compassion, etc.
If we don’t get as our foundation some experience of immeasurable equanimity, it would be difficult to go on to the latter three immeasurables. It would be difficult to gain experience of them without gaining some experience of the first immeasurable equanimity. So this is the necessity to have as a foundation equanimity is analogous to the growing of a crop. We need to prepare the area in which we are going to grow the crop. It has to be leveled off and flat.
If it were full of ruts and mounds, then it would be difficult to cultivate a good crop. Likewise with the nature of our attitude of mind, has to be equanimous as the level field in which to grow the crop of the latter three immeasurables. If the field were not level and it were to rain on that field, it would not be evenly spread over the field, but would collect in various spots and not in other spots. It is because our mind is not equanimous that it is beset by the biases of hatred, of aversion and attachment that we aren’t able to develop excellent qualities. So subsequent to immeasurable equanimity, we go on to meditate immeasurable love.
Then the means of proceeding in the meditation on immeasurable love are, as has been with the preceding immeasurable equanimity, has these four attributes. And we begin with the attribute of wishing, in which we reflect it in the thought, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all sentient beings had happiness and the causes of happiness? And then we go on, May all sentient beings have their happiness and the causes of happiness. This is the attribute of joy and then the remaining two attributes. And then we go on to the third attribute, that of exceptional resolve, where we take responsibility reflected in the thought that I myself will bring happiness and the causes of happiness to all sentient beings.
And then the attribute of requesting, making requests, may I blessed with the ability to bring happiness and the causes of happiness to all sentient beings. And the same holds true for the third immeasurable compassion, beginning with the attribute of wishing, in which it is reflected in thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all sentient beings were free of suffering and the causes of suffering? And then the attribute of joy, may they be may they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. And then the attribute of exceptional resolve, I myself will free them from the suffering and the causes of suffering. And then the attribute of request, requesting the lamas, spiritual teachers and the Three Jewels, may please empower me through your blessings to be able to free them from their suffering and the causes of their suffering.
So that is the first three of these four immeasurables, and then the fourth immeasurable is immeasurable joy. And we reflect upon the fact that some beings are presently experiencing the happiness of having a human life. Other beings are experiencing the happiness and the joy of having traveled the spiritual path and achieving liberation from cyclic existence. There are these various beings who are experiencing various levels of happiness. That is to say that people and various beings have attained some sort of happiness.
And here, in immeasurable joy, we begin with the attribute of wishing. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these beings were never separated from the joy, the happiness that they obtained? May they be never separated, may they never lose the happiness that they have attained. I myself will cause them never to lose the happiness that they attained. Making requests to the spiritual teachers and the Three Jewels, please empower me through your blessings that I might be able to cause them never to be separated from the happiness that they have attained.
This is the way we can proceed in our meditation through these four immeasurables, applying these four attributes to each of the four immeasurables. In this way, we can readily develop a sense of altruism, a beneficial intention toward others, and develop a great deal of creative potential. Just five minutes of meditating in this way can have extremely vast results. So if we proceed in this fashion, mind can continually abide in these immeasurables of equanimity, love, compassion, joy. And this is the great benefit to be derived from this meditation and there’s no reason why we can’t achieve that end.
So the purpose of Dharma is to transform our mind, and this is done to be developing creative potential and through our skillful actions in order to produce a happy mind. So for the remaining period of the meditation, for five minutes, we are going to proceed through these four immeasurables with each of the four attributes of each.