Four Immeasurables – practice
Practice Material
Verses for the practice of the four immeasurables (or the four brahmaviharas). These verses incorporate elements from Theravada, Mahayana, and Dzogchen approaches to the four immeasurables.
Meditating on the Four Immeasurables
Series
Ken McLeod presents a practical and experiential approach to the four immeasurables—equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy—drawing from multiple Buddhist traditions. Through guided meditations, deep inquiry, and lively exchanges with students, each session explores how these qualities emerge when we turn toward experience instead of away from it. These teachings invite a shift in how we meet ourselves and others, revealing the transformative power of an open and present heart.
Meditating on the Four Immeasurables is an excerpted version of the six-session series, Four Immeasurables. This four-session presentation focuses on the core contemplative practices themselves—equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy—offering a direct, practice-centred entry into the teachings. The two omitted sessions serve a different function in the original course. The opening class provides broader context about the role of the four immeasurables in Buddhist practice, while the concluding class offers a wide-ranging synthesis on emotional transformation and integration. For this series, those framing and integrative discussions are omitted in order to present a concise, self-contained sequence oriented toward experiential practice.
Four Immeasurables
Series
Ken guides an exploration of the four immeasurables—equanimity, loving-kindness, compassion, and joy—showing how these practices transform emotional reactivity into direct engagement with life. “All spiritual work is a process of transforming reactive, conditioned energy into natural free-flowing energy,” he says. Topics covered include recognizing emotional patterns, cultivating resilience through loving-kindness and compassion, distinguishing discernment from judgment, and experiencing joy as a natural expression of wholehearted living.
1. Foundations for Practice
Chapter 1 of “Four Immeasurables”
Reactive vs. higher emotions Ken: We’re going to begin what is a six session class on the four immeasurables. As all of you know, we’re going to be meeting every other week, not every week as we have in the past. On the alternate weeks the regular Tuesday group will be meeting here. Anybody […]
5. Compassion and Joy: Forming a New Relationship with Experience
Chapter 5 of “Four Immeasurables”
Forming a relationship with the world of experience Ken: This is class five of the Four Immeasurables. This is the second two weeks you’ve been working on compassion. I’d like to hear about your experiences, questions, insights, challenges. Student: Was it your intention that we say these things out loud or to ourselves? Ken: […]
6. Wholehearted Engagement with Life
Chapter 6 of “Four Immeasurables”
Having a passion for life Ken: This is our sixth and last class on the four immeasurables. I only have one thing to do, which is to go over the whole topic of transformation of emotions—from reactive emotions into expressions of natural awareness—and a couple of other things in connection with that. But first, […]
3. Loving-Kindness: Opening to Your Whole Life
Chapter 3 of “Four Immeasurables”
Loving-kindness: opening to your life Ken: So, this is our third class in this series of six on the four immeasurables. I think we’ll begin following basically the same format that we did last time. What was your experience with loving-kindness? That’s what you were working on last week, wasn’t it? Anybody have any […]
2. Equanimity: Meeting Experience Without Bias
Chapter 2 of “Four Immeasurables”
Reading material Ken: This is our second class in this six-session course. We are going to spend one class on each of the four immeasurables. To begin this one, I want to do a little housekeeping. In each of these classes, I’m going to try to do four things, in addition to our meditation. […]
4. Compassion: Opening to Heartbreak
Chapter 4 of “Four Immeasurables”
Compassion and experiencing heart break Ken: This is the fourth class on the four immeasurables. I believe the focus for practice over the last couple of weeks was compassion. Compassion being the wish that others not suffer, at least at one level. We’re working with the four lines: May I be free from suffering, […]
2. Opening to Happiness and Peace
Chapter 2 of “Meditating on the Four Immeasurables”
[…] in my experience of the practice, it isn’t directed inward. So I’m having a little bit of a strain there. Ken: Well, this particular approach, the four immeasurables, actually applies the principle in mind training: start the sequence with yourself. It’s not that we’re actually wishing this. We’re using these lines in order to […]
1. Freeing Ourselves from Preference and Prejudice
Chapter 1 of “Meditating on the Four Immeasurables”
[…] day. Student questions: equanimity Ken: This is our second class in this six session course. And we’re going to spend one class on each of the four immeasurables. So let’s begin with your experience of working with the four lines on equanimity. If we could have the microphones. Okay. So how was this? You […]
3. The Heartbreak of Compassion
Chapter 3 of “Meditating on the Four Immeasurables”
[…] seeing you next week. Student experiences of compassion meditation Ken: This is the fourth class. Only two more left after this. Okay, fourth class on the four immeasurables. And I believe the focus for practice over the last couple of weeks is compassion. Compassion being the wish that others not suffer, at least on […]
4. The Subtle Flavor of Joy
Chapter 4 of “Meditating on the Four Immeasurables”
[…] and so forth? Okay. So this concludes our fifth class. Student experiences with joy meditation Ken: Okay. This is our sixth and last class on the four immeasurables. So actually, I only have one thing to do, which is to go over the whole topic of transformation of emotions from reactive emotions into expressions […]
5. Uncovering Direct Knowing
Chapter 5 of “The Jewel in the Lotus”
[…] as having a transparent, white, radiant form will enrich or enhance your experience of feeling that you are awakened compassion. And what’s your relationship with the four immeasurables when you’re awakened compassion? Janneke, anybody else? She said they arise spontaneously altogether. Anybody else? We talked about love, compassion, joy, and equanimity, for those of […]
4. Taking and Sending: A Practice for Releasing Reactivity
Chapter 4 of “Releasing Emotional Reactions”
[…] always in relationship to something else. And that comes out in Buddhism that everything is empty of independent existence. Which is simultaneously liberating and terrifying. The four immeasurables Ken: Now, yesterday, we worked with ways to use the breath to come into the union of knowing and experience. We’re still going to use the […]
