Caring (Karuṇā)

So tonight's talk is the third in a series on the apamana, or limitless attitudes.

They're more commonly referred to by their other name in the text, which is the Brahmavihara, or the divine abodes.

I like the term apamana because to me, it actually points very concretely to some descriptive features of them so that we can kind of hone in on what the texts are trying to point us to.

The limitless attitudes are in the Buddhist teachings, in the Pali text.

They're these ways of relating to the world that you cannot have too much of.

This is what makes them limitless.

Buddha said essentially, if you want to orient your mind in a way that will feel good, right, that will bring you peace, that will reverberate in positive ways in your environment, you can trust that these ways of relating to the world will do you no harm.

You can take them to their extreme.

You can include everything in the world within these attitudes, and you'll be okay.

In fact, you'll be more than okay.

Right? It will be as if resting in the state of the gods.

So these are the limitless attitudes.

And there are four of them, and I'll just go over the four, and then I'll go over the one that I'm going to talk about tonight.