Purification of Emotions

Ayya Khema begins by asking what gives practice its meaning, and answers that it is the purification of heart and mind. She says our emotions set the quality of our lives, and that the Buddha’s guidelines for them are the four brahmaviharas, which she renders as lovingkindness, compassion, joy with others and equanimity. She distinguishes equanimity from indifference, which she calls its near enemy.

She suggests comparing an old baby photograph with a mirror to feel impermanence, links that to a sense of responsibility and urgency, and spends the second half on love as a quality of the heart, not a bond to a person, with attachment as its near enemy and hate as its far enemy.