by Tang Huyen

Tang Huyen was a prolific voice on talk.religion.buddhism and related groups from 2003 to 2008, posting from "Laughing Buddha, Inc." What distinguished his writing from the endless flamewars and casual exchanges that dominated the group was his command of primary sources: Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese Āgamas, and Tibetan, with citations to actual critical editions and scholarly translations. He was not a casual practitioner. He was a scholar.

This essay arose from a debate about whether mettā (friendliness) practice was recommended in the early suttas as part of the path to liberation. Tang Huyen uses the question as a springboard for a genuine comparative analysis: how the Four Divine Abodes — the Brahmaviharas — were understood in early Buddhism, how their doctrine of liberation developed across the Chinese Āgamas and Sanskrit fragments versus the Pali, and how the Mahāyāna reconceived them entirely as "non-intentioning friendliness" (an-ālambana-maitri) — action without a self, a recipient, or a gift.

His conclusion is characteristic: awakening doesn't depend on compassion. If it happens, it happens. The Buddhist path is best practiced by "emptying oneself out and letting the situation act one." This is not nihilism — it is the precise technical language of the Madhyamaka.

In the early canon, the Four Divine Abodes — friendliness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), equanimity (upekha) — are not promoted as heavily as they will be in the Abhidharma-Abhidhamma, certainly with regard to their fruits. They are also called Immeasurables (appamana) because in them one spreads one's directed imagination (directed because aimed at friendliness, compassion, etc. and focussed on each of them) to the size of the universe, though nothing happens out there, all that happens happens purely in one's imagination. They are totalisations (kasina) in that one makes believe to oneself that one has turned the whole universe into, say, friendliness, though it is mere make-believe to oneself, and nothing happens out there.

The Chinese Āgamas and the Sanskrit fragments of the Āgamas (but not the Pali, and here I think that the Pali is corrupt) promote the last, equanimity, as leading to full liberation (arhat-ship), because it helps one go beyond affection and aversion, but in general the Four Divine Abodes are said to lead to rebirth in the Form realm (rupa-dhatu) or the Formless realm (arupa-dhatu), unless they already lead to Non-Returnership in this life (one level below arhat-ship, in the scheme of the four fruits of saintliness).

Whilst the early canon has many texts affirming flatly the final fruit of arhat-ship for many methods (dhamma), there are very few texts that do so for the Four Divine Abodes, surely not in Pali, and as I said just now, the Chinese and Sanskrit affirm that the last Divine Abode, equanimity, leads to full liberation (arhat-ship), because it helps one go beyond affection and aversion. Harivarman, Tattva-siddhi, T, 32, 1646, 336c4-5 (quoting a sutra), Lalita-vistara, ed. S. Lefmann, Halle, 1902, 442: "One cultivates equanimity to abandon aversion and affection (upeksam pratilapsyate anunaya-pratigha otsargaya)," Abhidharmadipa, 428 (quoting a sutra), Vyākhyā, 686 have almost the same: kama-raga-vyapada-prahanayopeksa, see also DN, III, 249 (33).

The Four Immeasurables (Brahma Vihara) are in fact singly and together an exercise in futility, if there ever was one. They are exactly "voluntary adhesion" (adhimukti, adhimoksa), pure and simple, and in Husserlian terms consist in pure, objectless intentioning, unsoiled by empirical factors, for quite literally they have no reality or real object (tattva, bhuta-artha) to deal with — they proceed in the void, so to speak. They strictly are an exercise in changing one's internal disposition, and that is it. They have no — can have no — ambition on the real world. You can sit in a corner — even in the remotest mountain, far away from all congeneers so that you can do no mutual stroking with any of them — and still be able to practice them to perfection. The Four Immeasurables (Brahma Vihara) are pure projection, with no reality or real object intended as recipient or even gift — they are exactly what the French call jeux d'esprit (mind games). See, the Buddha can get very abstract.

In the Great Vehicle, the doctors think on how to reconcile non-mentation (or any other name for it in the Great Vehicle, like non-dual gnosis, non-discriminating wisdom, etc.) with the practice of the four attitudes in the real world, and hit upon a solution that is the reverse of the above "classical" set. In the classical set, one indulges in pure intentioning without real object; here one deals with real objects — without intentioning! Technically, the four attitudes are here called "non-intentioning friendliness" (an-alambana-maitri), etc., and one does not intention a self for oneself, one does not intention a receiver, one does not intention a gift (or whatever), but one does practice the four attitudes. This triple absence of intentionality is called the purity of the triple wheel (tri-mandala-visuddhi).

The Da zhidu lun (T, 25, 1509, 305b10-11; Lamotte, Traité, 2256 and n. 4) summarizes the general Buddhist path of meditation when it says specifically about friendliness (maitri): "It takes as object (alambate) first a voluntarily adhered-to sign (adhimukti-nimitta), later a real object (bhutartha)." Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṃkāra, ed. Lévi, I, 121: the unlimiteds without intentional objects cognise suchness (tathatā), and they are without intentional object because they are without discrimination (te hy a-vikalpatvad an-alambanah). Bodhisattva-bhūmi, 242: "Furthermore the bodhisattva cultivates friendliness without discriminating things (dharma-s), that is to be felt as the bodhisattva's friendliness without intentional object (Yat punar dharman apy a-vikalpayams tam eva maitrim bhavayati, iyam asyan-alambana maitri veditavya)."

The practice of the Immeasurables without object is accessible to those who do not give rise to self, others, and any object (concrete like a material gift, abstract like the Dharma of Buddhism) to be passed in between. It is — if practiced in real life and not merely imagined in platonic contemplation — the only way to make sure that, say, friendliness is really friendliness, because with a self around one can always fool oneself into taking one's selfish motives for altruistic ones. In it the acts do happen, but without thought of actor, recipient, and what is acted on (like the gift).

So Ch'an Fu is correct in that early Buddhism does not regard the Four Immeasurables highly (except the last one, equanimity) for their world-transcending power. They are regarded more like public-relations measures, because the monks who eat their meals (all of which are supposed to be got during begging tours) whilst contemplating the Four Divine Abodes give greater merits to their donors than if they don't do so. However they are good as tools to get one's mind free of impediments like hatred and malevolence so that one can begin more advanced methods, like the dropping of good and evil, merit and demerit.

All of which is merely a long-winded way of saying that Buddhism is best practiced by emptying oneself out and letting the situation act one. What happens — or doesn't happen — happens or doesn't happen without a self to mess up the purity of the act (or absence of an act). There is no inherence of anything — like compassion — in awakening. If it happens it happens and if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. Awakening doesn't depend on it, and doesn't increase or decrease due to it. Awakening is complete in itself and doesn't refer to anything beyond itself.

Colophon

Written by Tang Huyen (Laughing Buddha, Inc.) and posted to the Usenet groups alt.religion.buddhism.theravada, talk.religion.buddhism, uk.religion.buddhist, and alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan, July 2003. The post arose from a discussion about the canonical status of mettā practice, but stands as a self-contained essay on the doctrinal evolution of the Four Brahmaviharas across the Buddhist schools. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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