True happiness cannot be achieved in isolation but when we can relate to others. When one person is happy, there is always a ripple effect and an impact on others. It is seldom that you can find a heartless loner who is genuinely happy. With such understanding, the Four Immeasurables in Buddhism can help us lay a solid foundation to cultivate true love and happiness. But regardless of which religion or belief system you come from, these four pointers are probably the most practical ones to a more profound spiritual practice. These are the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. Immeasurable as there is literally no limit or boundary to how vast this practice can be and to who we can target.
To begin with, can we practise loving-kindness by loving not just our loved ones? Can you really see and appreciate the virtues in all and be respectful to them? (Well if not, can you try to at least see more good than bad qualities in someone?). Once we have loving-kindness as the bedrock, one can easily develop the precious attitude of compassion as you will naturally want others to be free from suffering. After all, don't we all share the same objective of being happy? The third one is cultivating appreciative (or altruistic) joy - to be delightful at the happiness or success of others, regardless of who they are. The fourth one is equanimity. As we have mentioned earlier that everyone seeks happiness, we need to cultivate the ability to be even-minded towards everyone no matter how they have become. Such freedom of strong reactions can also free us from our pride and our self-grasping nature.
We cannot let our dualistic knowledge and experiences obscure our primordial nature anymore - one that is pure, clear and pristine. The development of the Four Immeasurables may not happen overnight, but there is at least one person that we should conscientiously apply them on - yourself.
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