ABSTRACT
We have now described the essential message of Buddhism which traces out a Way leading from the examination of the three marks to the attainment of Nirvana. The slow ascent to the heights has not always been easy, and with some relief we may now turn for a while to something more tangible. Among the prescribed meditations we find a set of four, somewhat mysteriously called the ‘Stations of Brahma’, 194 which are meant to regulate our attitude to other people, and aim at the development of friendliness (maitrī), compassion, sympathetic joy (muditā) and impartiality. 195 They are not specifically Buddhistic, occur also in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, 196 and may have been borrowed from other Indian religious systems. For centuries they lay outside the core of the Buddhist effort, and the orthodox élite considered them as subordinate practices, rather incongruous with the remainder of the training which insisted on the unreality of beings and persons (cf. p. 81). Nevertheless they are important means of self-extinction (cf. pp. 84 sq.), and in the Mahāyāna became sufficiently prominent to alter the entire structure of the doctrine (cf. III 1, 6).
