“Touch with the heart of your hand.”
Sometimes, a teacher’s greatest lesson is offered in the most unexpected moments. I was recently lucky enough to study the Five Koshas (Five Bodies or “sheaths”) with Ralf Marzen at the Sunshine School in Chiang Mai, Thailand, when he offered these words to me in one magic moment.
This very special training in Chiang Mai is an incredibly unique experience. The five koshas are different layers of our human experience. They aren’t anything we have to fix, but they do tend to shade our understanding that we are all connected. We explore the Five Koshas in yoga nidra, which is one of my deep passions, but Ralf’s course helped me develop an even deeper understanding of them and how we can mindfully notice how we feel as we interact with our physical bodies, energy bodies, our thoughts and emotions, insight, and bliss in an alert state as well as in deep rest as in yoga nidra.
Ralf’s course wove through many powerful lessons, but one that really resonated me was his lecture on the four qualities of an awakened heart. These teachings are called the Brahmavihara in Buddhism, but these teachings transcend religion to help us find our way back to a connection with universal lessons of love, and in this place, we can find acceptance and peace.
No one is perfect, and we all have room to continue to grow. The patient cultivation of each of these four qualities can help us develop a life with more happiness and more connection, with ourselves, and with others.
Metta: Loving kindness
Most people have a pretty good understanding of this quality. As children, we’re told to be nice to others. The development of the ability to “be nice” helps us outgrow the selfishness that we have as children whose brains haven’t yet developed to the point where we can understand that there is a whole world of other people out there beyond ourselves.
Metta goes beyond just social niceties, however. It’s a kindness that goes beyond doing what is socially expected of us, and instead, is rooted in genuine love. This kind of kindness does not expect anything in return, and is not motivated by any other goal besides the desire to share pure, true love.
True loving kindness also comes to us when we are present in the moment. We can be nice as a habit, and while that is a wonderful habit to have, offering heartfelt kindness – metta – requires us to be here now. You can feel the difference, and so can those around you. It’s the difference between your friend half listening to you while looking at their phone, and what you see when they look into your eyes to truly listen.
Mudita: Sympathetic joy
If you ever find yourself feeling jealous or left out in the age of social media, mudita is our greatest ally. Mudita is the quality of sympathetic joy, and recognizing it can help us all retrain our brains to look past our habitual anxieties and fears, and instead begin to connect with a genuine feeling of happiness for others’ blessings.
When you see a photo of an event no one invited you to attend, or someone’s news about a great new job on the day you’re feeling the worst about being laid off, catch yourself. Take a breath, and try to focus instead on feeling honestly good for that person’s good fortune. If it doesn’t come easily, imagine YOU are that person, and then step back and see how that changes things.
There is even more reward to trying to find mudita than just a pretty angel's halo. When we feel jealousy, we secrete hormones that help to protect us from the perceived threat, even if the threat is just in our minds. Our bodies don’t know the difference between our thoughts and our nervous system. Choosing to move past feeling slighted and instead look for something to celebrate in others’ successes can lead our bodies to secrete feel-good hormones like serotonin and dopamine, and the good news is that these hormones are really addictive. Once you try practicing mudita for a few times, your brain will get the memo and lead you to feel it more regularly. Eventually, you will have developed a whole new habit that operates automatically, and you get to just feel good about all the amazing things happening all around you.
Upekka: Equanimity
Lucky for me, my training included a number of amazing students whose first language was not English. I thought I understood this one, but then someone asked for clarification. I am so glad they did.
Equanimity is that space in the middle. Not too hot, not too cold. Not too much, not too little. This may in fact be the hardest quality for us to cultivate in the developed world, because so much of our culture is pushing us to always want more. If we can step back from this, we can start to see that there is much more calm and peace to find away from the polarities of on and off. Computers may operate in binary code, but we’re not computers.
Living at an extreme high can even feel really good for a while as our bodies pump us full of adrenaline, but then when it runs out, we bottom out and feel really low. Rather than chasing the highs and pushing away the lows, finding equanimity can help us find the calmer waters that help us cultivate more gratitude and fulfillment with what we already have. We can still work towards new goals, but we do so mindfully and less frantically because we know that space in the middle where things feel okay. As we sit with that middle, we become less addicted to the highs and lows, and more at ease with the space that comes with upekka.
Karuna: Compassion
Compassion is something most of us feel for the people we know and love best. At its deepest level, this teaching is about extending our ability to feel compassion in situations where maybe it’s not as easy to be empathetic.
Often when we encounter someone who has different political or religious beliefs than us, or even if they like a different sports team than we do, we discount what they feel or label them as wrong. This creates distance and disconnection from the truth that while we may have different beliefs, we are all part of a greater whole.
We grow most when we can remember the teachings of karuna to help us look for common ground. Sometimes, it might seem like the only common ground we share with others is our breath. We can start there, and then realize that probably, they also want to feel successful, liked, and feel that those in their family and community will have enough security and safety to grow and thrive. Just like us. On this level, karuna takes us beyond our usual ways of living, to a whole new level of understanding.
These teachings seem simple, but as you work on putting them into practice, you may soon feel that you have developed some superpowers. And you most certainly have. The simplest teachings can offer us the greatest lessons, and as you begin to see change from putting these into practice, perhaps you too will be able to share this wisdom to pay it forward. One light can make a difference, and many lights can change the world. Shine on, you crazy diamond.