Four Sublime States

The first time that I visited the Buddhist Vihara I didn’t know what to expect. I took off my shoes on the front porch and left them with the others in some cubbies. The door was locked, so I knocked and rang the bell. Eventually a monk in a robe opened the door for me, asked if I was there for meditation, then led me into the main room of the temple. He gestured to a pile of mats and then the floor. The mat I picked couldn’t have felt less designed for comfort. It felt like there were curved metal beams inside the cushion, and sitting still while cross-legged felt nearly impossible. The monk saved me by smiling gently before placing a different mat and small cushion next to me. I returned the cushion of pain to the pile and sat down. The monk smiled and left the room. After my 45-minute meditation alone, I scanned the “free - please take” books near the door. I left with a small pocketbook describing the “four sublime states”.

A few weeks later when I returned the door was unlocked, and I was greeted by a different monk with more experience speaking English. I sat down and he handed me a piece of paper with some prayers on the front and back. He rang a bell, sang a hymn, and then we recited the prayers (“mantras” or “chants” are likely more accurate terms). The prayers focused on the four sublime states. After the prayers he guided me through a 45-minute meditation which focused on the same things. He seemed pleased when we finished, and we talked for another hour. I uncrossed my legs about 20 minutes into the conversation to avoid losing either limb entirely.

The four sublime states are: compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic-joy, and equanimity. It took our discussion and supplemental reading for me to feel like I got it. Bhante, a general term for a person who has taken a vocation in Theravada Buddhism, used a lot of analogies to explain to me each of the sublime states, and this is how my brain has processed them.

Compassion - understanding. Giving people grace in the fact that everybody is doing the best they can with the information they’ve gathered from their endlessly unique experiences. It becomes easier to live in this if we believe people that cause pain are likely in pain.

Loving Kindness - giving love outwardly despite how people are to us. It’s easy to pull away when we’re hurt or embarrassed. When a friend or stranger gives us attitude, loving kindness is showing them love anyway. It’s a giving love despite what is being received.

Sympathetic Joy - feeling relief and happiness in the good fortunes of others. This is feeling positively when somebody else stumbles upon something that we would love to have for ourselves.

Equanimity - Bhante called this, “staying on the middle path” regardless of good or bad fortune. It’s the hardest to understand of the four, in my opinion. I was exposed to the term previously by Shinzen Young as being one of the three parts of mindfulness meditation - equanimity in part with concentration and sensory clarity. The best way that I can describe equanimity (and hopefully I’m in the ballpark), is that it’s “wishing things to be exactly as they are”. If we wish things to be exactly as they are, then we will remain level in the face of “good or bad”. It does not mean indifferent. When we remain level, we can respond to any circumstance in a way that we deem best. To my understanding, it’s at least partially why Buddhists believe happiness and inner peace “need not be dependent on conditions”.