The brahmaviharas (divine meditations) consist of four boundless qualities: love (mettā), compassion (karuṇā), rejoicing (muditā), and equanimity (upekkhā). According to the sources, these practices serve as a powerful basis for achieving meditative immersion and eventual liberation.

The sources describe a systematic method for developing these qualities:

• Radiating the Quality: You begin by spreading a heart full of the chosen quality (e.g. love) to the four directions(east, south, west, north).
• Expanding the Scope: You then expand this awareness above, below, and across, until you are pervading the whole world with a heart that is abundant, expansive, limitless, and free of enmity and ill-will.
• Refinement: Advanced practice involves learning to perceive the "repulsive in the unrepulsive" and vice versa, or rejecting both to maintain steady equanimity regardless of the object.

Yes, the sources explicitly state that the brahmaviharas can lead to the four jhanas (absorptions).

• The Power of Immersion: When these qualities are developed to a "limitless" degree, they become a form of immersion (samādhi).
• Overriding Limited Kamma: Deep immersion in these states is so powerful that "any limited deeds" (past kamma) do not remain or persist in that state, allowing the mind to incline toward the Brahma realm.
• Progression to Formless States: The sources note that love can lead to the "liberation on the beautiful," while compassion, rejoicing, and equanimity can serve as bases to enter the formless attainments, such as the dimension of infinite space or nothingness.

Practising these "meditations of Brahma" offers both worldly and spiritual benefits:

• Immediate Well-being: The practitioner sleeps at ease, wakes happily, has no bad dreams, is loved by both humans and non-humans, and is protected by deities.
• Mental and Physical Clarity: The mind enters immersion quickly, the face becomes clear and bright, and the practitioner does not feel lost at the time of death.
• Spiritual Growth: For a disciple of the Buddha, these practices lead to non-return or full enlightenment if the mind is turned toward the cessation of conditions.
• Eliminating Thorns: These meditations act as "prerequisites of the mind" for removing the "thorns" of greed, hate, and delusion.

The sources suggest that the brahmaviharas directly support anapanasati by purifying the emotional state of the meditator:

• Countering Obstacles: Meditation on love is specifically recommended to give up hate and ill-will, which are major hindrances to any form of immersion.
• Creating Stability: By establishing a heart that is "unconstricted, freed, and undirected," the meditator creates the internal peace necessary for the breath to become still and for the mind to reach unification.
• Integrated Training: In the Buddha’s "balanced set of four meditations," love is paired with mindfulness of breathing; while love removes hate, breathing meditation is used to cut off discursive thinking. Thus, the brahmaviharas prepare the "field" of the mind for the more subtle work of anapanasati.

Analogy for Understanding: Developing the brahmaviharas is compared to a powerful horn blower who can easily make themselves heard in all four directions. Just as the sound reaches every corner of the landscape without obstruction, these limitless emotions fill the meditator's entire field of experience, leaving no room for the "limited" thoughts and enmities of the ordinary mind.

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