清淨道論 義疏通講 · 冊9Visuddhimagga · Exposition Throughout · Vol. 9

A Scalpel That Begins with Yourself: Treat Aversion and Grow toward Breaking the Boundaries

The Big Picture — Why this is the chapter’s most approachable unit for general readers

Within the concentration division, this chapter discusses goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity (its five units are goodwill [this unit], compassion 09-02, sympathetic joy 09-03, equanimity 09-04, and the Miscellany Discussion 09-05). It is the most approachable for two reasons. First, the procedure for taking it up is the simplest—what the text asks is that one, having cut off the impediments, received the meditation subject, finished the meal, and dispelled the drowsiness that follows eating, sit comfortably on a well-prepared seat in a secluded place and first reflect on the danger of aversion and the benefit of patience (Vernacular §1)—with none of the equipment and site preparation that the earth kasiṇa requires; once it has matured on the seat, the difficult colleague in daily life is exactly where it extends to as a practice ground (this is the Exposition’s extension, not the formal procedure the text teaches at this point). Second, its object is a “person,” not an abstract disk of earth-color or the tactile sensation of breath.

Yet its real sharpness does not lie in “teaching you to send out kindness.” Its claim is far more precise: each of these four states of mind is a scalpel treating a particular defilement, and each scalpel has a counterfeit that looks almost exactly like it. That counterfeit—called the “near enemy” in this chapter—feels like goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, or equanimity, yet carries you in the opposite direction. The page most worth reading in the entire chapter is the diagnostic table that distinguishes the genuine from the counterfeit (09-05 §4). This is also the measure that runs through the present exposition: practice often means not “adding another good thing,” but “seeing through a form of grasping that impersonates something good, and then releasing it.” 〔Reading〕

This unit presents the first of the four scalpels—goodwill, which treats aversion. Its ten Vernacular sections cover the whole course: preparation and objects (§1–§2), methods for removing aversion toward an enemy (§3–§6), breaking the boundaries and absorption (§7), three modes of pervasion (§8–§9), and the eleven benefits (§10).

§01 Beginning the Practice and Choosing Objects—Start with Yourself, Not with Those Closest to You → Vernacular §1–§2

〔Reading〕Stripped down to everyday terms, the sequence of objects is this: begin with yourself (take the person in whom genuine goodwill arises most easily, so that you know what “goodwill” feels like), then extend it to someone you respect and love, to a neutral person, and only at the end to an enemy. Do not begin with someone closest to you (the practice easily slips into possessive affection), or with someone you dislike (you would be pushing a boulder from the start). Treat “breaking the boundaries” as the long-term aim; there is no need to hurry.

The author’s text is more detailed (Vernacular §1–§2). Before beginning, first observe the danger in aversion and the benefit in patience—the cultivation of goodwill is precisely for abandoning aversion and gaining patience. Four persons with whom not to begin are specified: a disliked person (placing that person in the position of someone dear is tiring); a dearly loved friend (the practice slips into attachment, that person’s distress or illness becomes the meditator’s own pain, and the smallest trouble brings tears); a neutral person (placing that person in a position of honor is tiring); and an enemy (remembering the hostility arouses anger). Someone of the opposite sex (an object for lust) and someone who has died (neither absorption nor access can be reached—the young bhikkhu’s goodwill toward his teacher would not proceed; only when he sought the sign did he learn that his teacher had died, and changing to another person brought attainment) are excluded altogether. The practice begins with the meditator themself: “May I be happy and free from pain.” This is not to achieve absorption for the meditator—self-directed goodwill does not enter absorption—but to establish themself as witness: from the felt immediacy of “I desire happiness and recoil from pain,” the meditator infers that all sentient beings are the same, and goodwill is extended outward. The sequence is: a respected and loved person (a teacher or someone equal to a teacher, a preceptor or someone equal to a preceptor—recollect the reasons that person is dear and worthy of respect) → a dearly loved friend → a neutral person → an enemy, moving from position to position and making the mind pliant at each.

§02 An Enemy—Nine Methods for Removing Aversion → Vernacular §3–§6

The enemy is the most difficult position, and the author’s methods for removing aversion are correspondingly the longest (Vernacular §3–§6). If anger arises, first return to the furnace: go back to a preceding person (the respected and loved person, for example), repeatedly enter and emerge from goodwill attainment, and upon emerging direct it toward the enemy. If this return does not work, move through nine methods, changing methods whenever a method fails. Admonish and examine yourself (the Blessed One’s teachings are marshaled together—even if bandits severed your limbs with a two-handled saw, giving rise to aversion toward them would mean you were not practicing his teaching [the simile of the saw]; repaying anger with anger makes you worse than the first angry person, while not repaying it wins the battle hard to win; the angry person carries seven losses—ugliness, bad sleep, no great gain, no wealth, no fame, no friends, and rebirth in a bad destination—all just what an enemy wants; anger toward another is like grasping burning coals and excrement and first burning and fouling your own hands, or like throwing dust against the wind and having it fall back upon you). Recollect the person’s purified conduct (take any pure point in body, speech, or mind—recollect bodily conduct in someone pure in body, verbal conduct in someone pure in speech, and mental conduct in someone pure in mind; when all three are pure, any may easily be recollected; when none is pure, turn instead to compassion—although this person now behaves badly, they are headed toward a bad destination and are all the more worthy of compassion). Use the verses of self-admonition (ten paired examinations in succession—“An enemy caused pain in that person’s domain; why cause pain again inside your own mind?” “The aggregates that committed the disagreeable deed have ceased; at whom are you angry now?” “You too are a cause of the pain; why be angry with the other?”—each pair dismantles the “person at whom the meditator is angry” until it has nowhere to stand). Examine ownership of kamma (the other’s kamma is theirs to experience; the fruit of my anger is mine to consume—like taking a coal in hand to throw at another, burning the meditator’s own hand first). Recollect the Teacher’s birth stories (the teacher of patience was dismembered without anger; King Sīlava yielded his kingdom to the usurper; the patience of Little Dhammapāla; the six-tusked elephant king gave his tusks to the hunter; the great monkey rescued a man from a precipice only to be struck by his stone; the three nāga kings Bhūridatta, Campeyya, and Saṅkhapāla endured a charmer’s torment without harming anyone—birth after birth he acted so; who am I to do otherwise?). Examine beginningless saṃsāra (in beginningless birth and death that person has been my mother, father, brother, sister, son, and daughter—how can anger arise toward someone who bore and nursed me or labored and risked life to protect me?). Recollect goodwill’s eleven benefits (if this mind is not cultivated, all eleven are lost). Analyze into elements (who is the person at whom I am angry? Am I angry with their head-hairs? Head-hairs are only elements—analyze through the eighteen elements and anger has nowhere to lodge). Practice giving (give the meditator’s own property and accept the other’s—but if the other has broken right livelihood and their requisites cannot be used, give only the meditator’s own and do not accept theirs). This sequence of methods is the tempering of goodwill: from reasoning to observing kamma, from recollecting kindness to analyzing elements, and finally ending with the gift of a single object.

§03 Breaking the Boundaries and Absorption → Vernacular §7

Only when goodwill becomes equal toward four persons—the meditator, the dear person, the neutral person, and the enemy—is this called breaking the boundaries (sīmāsambheda). Suppose the four sit together and robbers demand, “Give us one person.” If the mind selects “give this person” or “give that person,” the boundaries have not been broken. Even “take me” does not suffice. Only when “no person may be given” and all four are viewed equally have the boundaries been broken. When breaking the boundaries is accomplished, absorption is also gained—the sign and access arise together, and absorption comes without difficulty. Goodwill with its boundaries broken is this unit’s summit.

§04 Three Modes of Pervasion and 528 Absorptions → Vernacular §8–§9

Once absorption has been gained, pervasion follows its formulas (Vernacular §8–§9): unlimited pervasion in five modes (all sentient beings, all who breathe, all who have been born, all persons, all included within an individual existence); limited pervasion in seven modes (all women, men, noble ones, those not noble, devas, human beings, and those fallen into bad destinations); and pervasion by the ten directions (from the east through the direction below). Five times four wishes, seven times four wishes, and ten directions times forty-eight make 528 absorptions. The word-by-word explanation and the distinctions among the five designations (sentient beings, those who breathe, and the rest) appear paragraph by paragraph in Vernacular §8–§9.

§05 The Eleven Benefits → Vernacular §10

The liberation of mind through goodwill, when practiced and cultivated, brings eleven benefits: sleeping happily, waking happily, seeing no bad dreams, being dear to human and nonhuman beings, protection by deities, immunity from fire, poison, and weapons, rapid concentration of mind, a bright complexion, an unclouded death, and birth in the brahmā world if no higher state has been reached. The point-by-point explanation (Vernacular §10) preserves both forms of the heading, including its “exceedingly bright complexion”—no item is omitted. The cow story deserves particular attention: the text says plainly that the spear’s rolling away “was neither the power of access nor the power of absorption, but only because of her strong love for the calf” (Vernacular §10)—the protective power rests on the strength of the loving mind itself, not on the stage of concentration.

For the General Reader — Something You Can Practice Tonight

If you retain only one thing: practice goodwill tonight, beginning with yourself.

1. Sit quietly and say to yourself: “May I be safe. May I be free from enemies. May I be happy.”
2. When goodwill has genuine warmth (rather than being a repeated slogan), extend it to someone you respect and love, then to a neutral person, and finally—only after the earlier stages are steady—to someone you dislike.
3. Throughout, keep the diagnostic measure in view (09-05 §4): does this warmth contain “because this person is mine”? If so, it has slipped into the near enemy. Notice it, release it, and return to the simple wish, “May you be happy.”

A few reminders: do not begin with the person closest to you or with someone you dislike. Do not panic if the practice suddenly grows less intense (it may be moving toward equanimity—09-05 §5 explains equanimity as the natural outflow). Treat “breaking the boundaries” as a long-term aim.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §1–§10 gives the complete paragraph-by-paragraph rendering of goodwill (tr. mine, from the public-domain Pāli original). For comparative reading, see Ye Jun’s translation, Chapter 9, and Ñāṇamoli’s English translation, Chapter IX.

The Second Scalpel: Treating Harmfulness

The Big Picture — Compassion’s place among the four scalpels

The second of the four divine abodes is compassion, which treats harming (vihiṃsā). This unit is short—only one section—because the author passes over the shared procedure with “by the method stated under goodwill.” What belongs distinctively to compassion is its initial object and its sequence.

§01 The Method of Compassion → Vernacular §1

Before beginning the practice, first observe the danger in being without compassion and the benefit in compassion (a preparation structurally parallel to goodwill). Take someone who intensely calls for compassion as the object: on seeing a person in hardship, someone maimed, or a person sitting with a begging bowl, arouse the thought, “This sentient being truly suffers hardship; may they be freed from pain.” It is like seeing a condemned prisoner: a thief is bound for a crime, beaten by the king’s officers, and led to the execution ground; on seeing him, the thought arises, “May he be freed from this pain.” This is the mode of compassion. Compassion can even be aroused toward a person now prospering through evil. Although no disaster is presently visible, the person has not gone beyond the suffering of saṃsāra, and a bad destination lies ahead—is that person not worthy of compassion? The sequence follows the principle of goodwill but has its own ordering. Do not begin with a dear person and the rest (a dear person remains in the position of someone dear—the persons each remain in their existing position, leaving no opening for the practice to begin). The author rejects the commentary’s older sequence that begins with an enemy by appealing to the canonical text (the canonical passage itself begins with someone who calls for compassion). A person of the opposite sex and a person who has died are simply barren ground. When the practice reaches an enemy and the breaking of the boundaries, everything follows “the method stated under goodwill.” The five, seven, and ten modes of pervasion and the benefits likewise follow goodwill.

§02 Correspondence — Is this the same as Mahāyāna “great compassion”? 〔Optional〕 → Vernacular §1

Readers coming from the Yogācāra or Mahāyāna shelf should set one difference down gently. Here in the Southern tradition, the four divine abodes are objects of calm (samatha). They can lead to jhāna and the favorable result of rebirth in the brahmā world, but by themselves do not lead directly to liberation—liberation depends on the insight taught later in the wisdom division. Mahāyāna, by contrast, raises great compassion (mahākaruṇā) together with the mind of awakening to the heart of the path, the fundamental force by which a bodhisattva traverses birth and death without entering nibbāna. The same word, “compassion,” bears different roles in the two systems. Put the Southern tradition’s four divine abodes back in their original place—one chapter in the concentration division, a method for purifying the mind—and the correspondence becomes clear on its own.

For the General Reader

The everyday beginning of compassion is utterly plain: when you see someone suffering, do not look away. Say once, completely, in your mind: “May you be freed from this pain.” Preserve the distinction from its near enemy (09-05 §4): compassion wishes to remove pain; grief rooted in home life says, “I cannot bear to look”—the former moves outward, while the latter still revolves around the practitioner themself.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §1 is the complete paragraph-by-paragraph rendering of the compassion passage.

The Third Scalpel: Treating Discontent (Envy)

The Big Picture — Sympathetic joy’s place among the four scalpels

The third of the four divine abodes is sympathetic joy (muditā, joy in another’s good fortune), which treats discontent (arati, envy arising at another’s gain). This unit is only one section long; what belongs distinctly to it is the initial object.

§01 The Method of Sympathetic Joy → Vernacular §1

Take a dearly loved friend as the initial object—the person the author calls an “intimate friend” (soṇḍasahāya). Seeing this person’s prosperity or hearing of their gain, the thought “Ah, excellent! How wonderful!” gives rise naturally to sympathetic joy. Sympathetic joy can likewise arise by recollecting a dear person’s former prosperity or future prosperity. A dear person cannot become the proximate cause of sympathetic joy merely by being dear. Thus the meditator begins either with an intimate friend, or with a dear person whose happiness and joy the meditator has seen or heard—the treatise explicitly lists both. From there, proceed in sequence through a dear person, a neutral person, and finally an enemy. A person of the opposite sex and a person who has died are simply barren ground. Breaking the boundaries, absorption, the three kinds of pervasion, and the benefits follow what was stated under goodwill.

For the General Reader

Among the four scalpels, sympathetic joy is the most counterintuitive in everyday life: when another person receives the thing you wanted, say once, completely, “That is wonderful.” Preserve the distinction from its near enemy (09-05 §4): sympathetic joy rejoices in the other person’s gain; joy rooted in home life is the excitement of “this gives me a share too.” The former is selfless; the latter has a hook.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §1 is the complete paragraph-by-paragraph rendering of the sympathetic-joy passage.

The Fourth Scalpel: Treating the Twin Inclinations of Attachment and Aversion—Yet Equanimity Is Not Indifference

The Big Picture — Equanimity’s Place among the Four Scalpels

Last among the four divine abodes is equanimity: maintaining impartial neutrality toward sentient beings and treating the twin inclinations of attachment and aversion. Equanimity is not indifference—it is the temperature reached after the first three scalpels mature. Why it comes last and why it alone begins with the fourth jhāna are explained in 09-05 §5–§7, on sequence and the jhānas to which the four belong.

§01 The Method for Equanimity → Vernacular §1

Equanimity has two distinctive features. First, cultivation begins with a neutral person. Each of the first three practices has its own starting person: goodwill takes the meditator themself as a sample and then begins with someone respected and loved; compassion begins with someone in extreme misery; and sympathetic joy begins with an intimate friend. Toward a neutral person, cultivate through the impartial contemplation “Sentient beings are heirs to their own kamma”; then proceed to a dear person, a dearly loved friend, and an enemy, through breaking the boundaries. Second, equanimity depends exclusively on the fourth jhāna. The meditator must first attain the third jhāna in one of the first three divine abodes, emerge from it, see its drawbacks—“the attachment still lies close in forming the wish ‘May they be happy’ toward sentient beings, and the pleasure associated with joy is still gross”—see the benefit of equanimity’s peacefulness, and only then enter equanimity with a neutral person as object. Without passing through the first three, the jhāna of equanimity does not arise. The boundary of its object is equally strict: a third jhāna in a meditation subject such as the earth kasiṇa has an object disparate from equanimity and cannot serve as its basis. Only the third jhāna of one of the first three divine abodes has an object of the same kind—sentient beings—and can give rise to the equanimity of a divine abode. A person of the opposite sex and a person who has died remain barren ground as before; the transformation through pervasion and the benefits follow the conclusion under goodwill.

For the General Reader

Equanimity has the finest everyday test: care remains; anxiety does not. It resembles parents relating to their grown children who are doing well on their own—not loving them less, but no longer straining to intervene. If the cultivation of goodwill becomes “very even and very quiet,” that need not be regression; the mind may be inclining toward equanimity. In 09-05 §5 the author himself calls equanimity the natural outflow of the first three. Yet the proper cultivation of equanimity has its own entrance: master the third jhāna of the first three, emerge, contemplate its drawbacks, and only then enter equanimity (§01). A spontaneous fading of intensity is merely a signpost, not the jhāna of equanimity itself. Do not rush to force the warmth back, and do not take the fading itself as an attainment.

To read this unit in full: Vernacular §1 is the complete paragraph-by-paragraph translation of the entire discussion of equanimity.

The Four Scalpels Taken Together: Meanings, Diagnostic Table, Sequence, and Jhāna Assignment

The Big Picture — The Place of the General Discussion

Each of the preceding four units cultivates one scalpel; this unit is the author’s joint discussion of all four scalpels: meanings and characteristic-function-manifestation (Vernacular §1–§2), common and distinctive purposes (§3), the diagnostic table of near and far enemies (§4—the page in the entire chapter most worth committing to memory), sequence, expansion, and outflow (§5–§6), jhāna assignment and the objection from the Book of Eights (§7), and culminations and fulfillment (§8).

§01 Meanings and the Characteristic-Function-Manifestation of the Four Practices → Vernacular §1–§2

First come the meanings of the four names themselves (Vernacular §1). Goodwill (mettā) has two explanations: the sense of moistening and the mode associated with a friend. Compassion (karuṇā) has three: making good people’s hearts tremble when another suffers, removing another’s suffering, and spreading with those who suffer as its basis. Sympathetic joy (muditā) has three: the person possessing it rejoices through it, it rejoices itself, or it is simply joy. The derivation of equanimity (upekkhā) is abandoning the activity expressed in “May they be free from enmity” and the rest and entering the contemplation of neutrality.

Next are sixteen cells (Vernacular §2) for recognizing each practice. Goodwill has the occurrence of the mode of welfare as characteristic, bringing welfare as function, removing ill will as manifestation, and seeing sentient beings as agreeable as proximate cause. Compassion has the occurrence of the mode of removing suffering as characteristic, inability to bear another’s suffering as function, non-harming as manifestation, and seeing the helplessness of those who suffer as proximate cause. Sympathetic joy has gladness as characteristic, non-envy as function, destroying discontent as manifestation, and seeing the success of sentient beings as proximate cause. Equanimity has the occurrence of the mode of neutrality as characteristic, seeing equality among sentient beings as function, the subsiding of ill will and attachment as manifestation, and seeing ownership of kamma as proximate cause. Paired with these are success and failure: goodwill succeeds when ill will subsides and fails when attachment arises; compassion succeeds when harming subsides and fails when grief arises; sympathetic joy succeeds when discontent subsides and fails when merriment arises; equanimity succeeds when attachment and aversion subside and fails when worldly ignorant equanimity arises. The reading rule is this: characteristic, function, and manifestation are cells for recognizing the genuine article; success and failure are warning signs that it has been misused. Only when both tables are used together do they become an operative diagnostic template.

§02 Common Purpose and the Four Escapes → Vernacular §3

The common purpose of the four practices is the happiness of insight and success in existence—bringing ease into insight and completing fortunate existence. Their distinctive purposes are their respective counteractions: goodwill counters ill will, compassion counters harming, sympathetic joy counters discontent, and equanimity counters attachment. The author fixes these four escapes, one scalpel to one lock, with scriptural evidence: “The escape from ill will is precisely the mind-deliverance of goodwill,” and so forth.

§03 Breaking the Fixation — The Page on Near Enemies, the Most Important in the Chapter to Memorize 〔The Decoder’s Reading〕 → Vernacular §4

The table of near and far enemies is this chapter’s central diagnostic tool. The reading rule is: the far enemy tells you, “Do not go over there”; the near enemy tells you, “Take care—you may only think you are over here.” The most common failure in cultivating goodwill is not turning hateful, since that is visibly wrong at once, but mistaking a “sticky partial fondness” for goodwill. Goodwill says, “May you be happy, without depending on your belonging to me.” Attachment says, “I want you to be well because you are mine.” Their temperatures are close, but their directions are opposite.

The near enemy is difficult to break because it is an additive counterfeit: it gives you an extra warm feeling, which you are reluctant to release and therefore keep as an attainment. Breaking it does not mean adding a still more forceful layer of goodwill to suppress it; it means seeing whether this warmth contains stickiness and ‘mine,’ and releasing it as soon as it is seen. In Chapter 20, in the “ten corruptions of insight,” you will see the same structure repeated at a higher level: illumination, knowledge, and rapture are mistaken for awakening. The near enemies of the divine abodes are the introductory version of that lesson.

One criterion worth memorizing, in this edition’s own rendering: “May you be happy” is goodwill; “May you be happy because you are mine” is its near enemy.

The table in Vernacular §4 is as follows. Goodwill’s near enemy is attachment—of the same kind in seeing something “dear”—and its far enemy is ill will. Compassion’s near enemy is house-based grief and its far enemy is harming. Sympathetic joy’s near enemy is house-based glad feeling and its far enemy is discontent. Equanimity’s near enemy is worldly ignorant equanimity and its far enemies are attachment and aversion. Near enemies are confused through “sameness of kind,” whereas far enemies repel through “disparity of kind.” The former is near and the latter far, so their respective safeguards differ.

§04 Sequence, Expansion, and Outflow—Equanimity Is Not Indifference 〔Reading〕 → Vernacular §5–§7

The sequence in Vernacular §6 has a rationale: goodwill is the foundation, compassion and sympathetic joy stand upon it, and equanimity finally refines the first three from “I am still exerting myself” into “impartial and effortless.” Equanimity is not indifference; it is the temperature reached after the first three mature—like parents relating to their grown children who are doing well on their own: care remains, but anxious intervention does not.

The statement in Vernacular §7 that “goodwill, compassion, and sympathetic joy reach the third jhāna, while equanimity begins with the fourth” has a practical use. If goodwill suddenly becomes “very even and very quiet, without the former warmth of wishing well,” that need not be regression. The mind may be shifting toward equanimity—do not rush to force the warmth back.

The body states two further matters (Vernacular §5–§6). Beginning, middle, and end: desire to act is the beginning, suppression of the hindrances the middle, and absorption the end. Object: on the conceptual level it is one sentient being or many; expansion occurs only after access or absorption has been attained. The dwelling formula begins with one dwelling; once one is mastered, it proceeds to two, then in sequence to street, village, kingdom, direction, and an entire world-system. No geographic measure is taken; cultivation proceeds toward immeasurable sentient beings. Equanimity is the outflow of the first three, as pillars and beams establish the basis for rafters. Read alongside this the derivation of “divine abode” from supremacy and faultlessness, “why only four” through the pairing of four paths of purity with four modes of attention, the simile of a mother and four sons—young, ill, in the prime of youth, and attending to his own affairs, corresponding respectively to goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—the reason for the successive order of goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, and why they are called immeasurables because they occur toward immeasurable sentient beings. Only then is the rationale of the sequence complete.

§05 Jhāna Assignment and the Objection from the Book of Eights → Vernacular §7

Goodwill, compassion, and sympathetic joy depend on the first three jhānas in the fourfold scheme and the first four in the fivefold scheme; equanimity belongs only to the fourth in the fourfold scheme and the fifth in the fivefold. The objection from the Book of Eights in the Aṅguttara Nikāya asks: the discourse describes the mind-deliverance of goodwill as “with thought and examination” through “accompanied by equanimity,” so does goodwill itself not also occupy the fourth jhāna? The author resolves it as a statement about turning the root concentration toward other objects, not a claim that goodwill itself directly enters a jhāna accompanied by equanimity. This is the most technical passage on the ledger; Vernacular §7 records its question and answer in full.

§06 Culminations, Fulfillment, and the Chapter’s Close → Vernacular §8

Each practice has its own culmination: goodwill in the liberation of purity, compassion in the base of infinite space, sympathetic joy in the base of infinite consciousness, and equanimity in the base of nothingness. Each pairing has a reason: compassion sees the danger in form and inclines toward space, sympathetic joy takes up the consciousness of joyful sentient beings and inclines toward consciousness, and equanimity releases grasping at its object and inclines toward nothingness. Each practice is the decisive support for its higher attainment. The conclusion gives the modes of the ten perfections: grounded in the four divine abodes toward sentient beings and formations, great beings give, undertake virtue, practice renunciation, cultivate wisdom, arouse energy, endure, keep truth, resolve, act through goodwill, and act through equanimity. Each of the ten proceeds through the four divine abodes. The divine abodes are not a list of four good emotions; they are the platform capable of bearing every wholesome quality. The four lines at the chapter’s end are the author’s own designation of the book title, division, chapter title, and ninth-chapter number, not a verse.

In one sentence: the four divine abodes are not four good emotions but four surgical scalpels, each dismantling a particular defilement; the hardest work is recognizing the counterfeit that looks exactly like the scalpel and then letting it go.