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Basic Buddhist Teachings 23 - The Four Immeasurable Minds
“Our enemy is not human… only compassion is worthy,” the poem Dặn Dò set to music resounds, then “nectar from the ten directions… the radiance sweeps away all dangers,” praising Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Thay recounts his trip to Italy to give a Dharma talk at the “Cathedral Basilica in Florence”; the book contains Thay’s photograph and “offerings” sent back to Plum Village as a practice of “Jesus and Buddha walking together.”
From “February 6, 1994… studying the Noble Eightfold Path,” Thay goes directly into “dependent origination with the Twelve Links”; distinguishing deluded mind dependent origination that creates a “small hell” and true mind dependent origination that builds a “world of Avatamsaka flowers.”
The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination:
- delusion (ignorance)
- formations
- consciousness
- name and form
- six sense bases
- contact
- feeling
- craving
- grasping
- becoming
- birth
- old age and death
The key: “contact and feeling must be protected by mindfulness” in order to replace “craving” with “loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.” The four Brahma-Viharas (Four Immeasurable Minds):
- loving kindness (maitri/metta) – “offering joy”
- compassion (karuna) – “relieving suffering”
- joy (mudita) – “true joy”
- equanimity (upekkha) – “freedom, non-discrimination”
“Dwelling happily in the present moment” requires the seven factors of awakening; the seven factors are clearly stated:
- mindfulness
- investigation of dharmas
- diligence
- joy
- ease
- concentration
- insight
Thay dispels old misunderstandings: the practice of the Four Immeasurable Minds cannot be separated from “the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path,” and is not just an “internal aspiration” but must be transformed into the “Six Paramitas” of action. “To practice is to love, to love very much and to love in a healthy way,” because “the Buddha was not dry or emotionless, but was very rich in feeling.”