Customer Reviews

The Four Immeasurables: Cultivating a Boundless Heart

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This book focuses on cultivating the brahma-viharas: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Wallace offers incisive insights on these topics, as well as a nice summary of the meditation practice of samatha. Samatha is geared towards sharpening one's attention, which on the surface may not seem to have much in common with the four positive emotions that are the core of this book. Wallace demonstrates however that they are inextricably linked, and cultivation of attention serves as a foundation for achieving greater emotional virtue. He gives several examples for deepening understanding and practicing guided meditation.

Wallace trained in the east but he is a westerner and also a scholar. Nonetheless, his writing is very articulate and reader-friendly. As such he is very qualified to bring these practices to the west. If these types of practices were made widely available, my guess is that many psychiatric illnesses such as depression, anxiety, anger-related problems, and ADHD would significantly diminish.

P.S. I meant to give this 5 stars.

Knowledgeably written by an instructor in Tibetan Buddhist theory and practice who trained for many years in monasteries in India and Switzerland, The Four Immeasurables: Cultivating A Boundless Heart is an inspirational collection of guided meditations, and reflections upon the "Four Immeasurables" (cultivation of loving kind-ness, compassion, equanimity, and empathic joy) that touch upon the lives of readers of all faiths. A deeply spiritual discussion offering a gateway to applying the wisdom found in Buddhist faith and practice to dilemmas of daily reality.