The four boundless attitudes, also known as the Four Immeasurables, describe the approach, outlook, and training of an aspiring Bodhisattva. They are loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.
These four qualities are the essence of enlightened heart and mind (bodhicitta). Through their practice, we cultivate the wish that all beings experience happiness and its causes, be free from suffering and its causes, remain connected to happiness beyond suffering, and dwell in great equanimity, free from passion, aggression, and prejudice.
The four boundless attitudes offer a way to bring the wisdom and compassion of the Bodhisattva path into our everyday lives.
Related Resources
Read (PDF): Practice of the Four Boundless Attitudes
Read (PDF): Quotes on Equanimity
Read (PDF): Quotes on Compassion
Read (PDF): Five Necessary Qualities of Mind from From Ven. Khandro Rinpoche
“From this point of view, the practice of the Four Immeasurables does not progress from
loving kindness to compassion to joyfulness and equanimity. It begins with equanimity.
The first thing you practice is resting your mind closer and closer to its innate nature.
Mind then recognizes its nature to be none other than the flow of loving kindness,
compassion…..”