Near and Far Enemies

In working with the Four Boundless Qualities, we need to take care not to detour into other, drastically di erent states, accidentally cultivating them instead, or into the even more dangerous apparently similar states. They will lead us away from our goal of feeling our connection with others, rather than toward it. Buddhism refers to Far Enemies (opposite qualities) and Near Enemies (imposters that could still lead us away from connection).

The Buddha spoke of both a Near and Far Enemy for each of the Boundless Qualities, and there are some first cousins to those enemies that we might want to look at too.

Each of the Four Boundless Qualities gets us past our ego fixation and joins us with another being, in a way that brings right relationship.

We can feel that rightness and joining when it happens. And, as we know from neuroscience, that feeling registers in that ever-popular left middle prefrontal lobe, a main locus of positive emotions. From a Buddhist point of view, it’s bringing forth our Buddha Nature by expanding that aspect of it that knows we’re not separate. Again, the Four Boundless Qualities bring forth that awareness through feeling, as opposed to some other practices like Insight Meditation. In Insight Meditation, we see how we’re not separate—also important, and Insight Meditation dovetails perfectly with practices such as the Boundless Qualities. That’s why we do them together in the Round Robin Practice.

The Far Enemy of a Boundless Quality is an opposite quality, which has an obvious separating e ect, certainly an enemy to the goal of feeling joined with others. It’s generally easier to catch ourselves falling into the Far Enemy than the Near because the di erence is so dramatic and obvious. Unless we’re going out of our way to fool ourselves, it would be di cult to mistake a Far Enemy for its opposite Boundless Quality. We can get distracted (as ever) in our meditation and not notice it at first, but an emotion such as hate is pretty nasty looking