Exploring Positive Emotion

The Brahma Viharas ('Divine Abodes')

In Buddhist teachings, loving kindness (metta) is one of a set of ‘positive emotions’ and all can be developed through practices akin to the metta bhavana. In fact, each of these emotions arises when our own sense of kindness is able to meet different qualities we encounter in ourselves and in others.

Mudita is the emotion of ‘sympathetic joy’, which we feel when we delight in the good fortune or happiness of another person.

Karuna is the Buddhist word for ‘compassion’, which is what we call loving kindness when it is directed towards someone who is suffering. 

Upeksha means 'equanimity' and it's the emotional state we experience when we are able to take on whatever happens with the same, steady loving response without being thrown about, whatever happens. 


Happy indeed we live, friendly amidst the hostile. Happy indeed we live, friendly amidst those afflicted by craving.

Happy indeed we live, we who possess nothing. Feeders on joy we shall be, like the Radiant Gods.

The Buddha, The Dhammapada


Learning to be divine 

Ratnavandana has been practising the brahma viharas for decades


Being Divine Online

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