In a world increasingly dominated by hatred and war, cultivating compassion and benevolence has become an imperative need. In this edition of Buddhistdoor en Español, we are honored to interview Dr. Javier García Campayo, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Zaragoza and Miguel Servet Hospital. He is the director of the Master of Mindfulness and the Chair of Contemplative Sciences. He is also the author of several books on mindfulness and compassion, and organizer of the International Mindfulness Congress. We talked about his most recent book, The Quintessence of Meditation: The Brahmaviharas: love, compassion, joy, equanimity, published by Editorial Kairós in 2024. This work represents a significant contribution in Spanish to the study and promotion of mental states that foster love and compassion.
During the interview, we explore the profound relevance of the brahmavihāras, also known as the "sublime" or "immeasurable attitudes," and their potential application in modern psychology. These practices, essential in traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, are gaining ground in contemporary psychological therapies, offering new tools for emotional well-being and mental health.
Dr. García Campayo also shares his perspectives on how to integrate these practices into daily life and their potential to transform individual practice as well as group and community dynamics. Dr. García Campayo's work includes audios of his own guided meditations, providing a valuable tool for personal development. We invite you to join this conversation on how the brahmavihāras can help address the emotional challenges of the modern world.
BUDDHISTDOOR EN ESPAÑOL: At first glance, it might seem that the practice of the brahmavihārassefocuses solely on psychological development and the formation of compassionate and benevolent personality traits. However, as is evident from your book and from scriptures and commentaries in the Buddhist tradition, the cultivation of loving-kindness(mettā), compassion(karuṇā), altruistic joy(muditā), and equanimity(upekkhā) has a much deeper purpose. These practices not only promote the development of concentration(samatha) and insight(vipassanā), but can also lead to states of meditative absorption(jhāna) and even lead to the gates to enlightenment. Could you elaborate on this theme and explain how the brahmavihāras contribute to the Buddhist path?
JAVIER GARCÍA CAMPAYO: Indeed, the immeasurables or brahmaviharas could be used in two ways, that's why they are so incredible. On the one hand, they can be used as generative meditation to produce in meditators these four sublime qualities: loving-kindness, compassion, empathic joy and equanimity. These are states that should structure human relationships and constitute their foundation. In this way, individual and also social conflicts, such as wars, dictatorships or any abuse of human rights, would be avoided. But, along with their social function, they would have great individual importance because they would avoid any kind of negative interpersonal action, being the basis of ethics in any religious tradition. Moreover, the bliss and joy they generate lay the foundation for deeper meditations.
But, as you say, they can also be used as an attentional support to develop the states of absorption or jhanas. There are forty possible attentional supports for this purpose, and the brahmavihāras are one of the most used for this purpose, being able to reach the deepest states.
This implies that these meditations can serve people with little knowledge in meditation, and they can enjoy the multiple psychological benefits (demonstrated by research studies) that produce the immeasurables. And they can also constitute the main meditation or one of them, in advanced meditators.
BDE: As mentioned in The Quintessence of Meditation, although scientific research on brahmaviharas is limited and has focused primarily on compassion, some recent studies highlight their benefits on personality. Could you give examples of scientific evidence to support these benefits? Also, how does the cultivation of brahmavihāras align with recent findings in psychology and neuroscience?
JGC: Psychology has shown for decades that people who try to develop happiness by increasing the happiness of others are much happier than those who try to be happy by focusing exclusively on their own well-being. This is the foundation of compassion in particular and brahmaviharas in general.
Compassion is especially useful to reduce guilt, shame, perfectionism or self-demanding, elements that produce high suffering. It has been used with great success in disorders such as depression, anxiety, anorexia, addictions or chronic pain. But it also develops strengths such as gratitude, resilience, optimism, curiosity, creativity or cooperative capacity. Loving kindness and empathic joy would produce similar and complementary effects to compassion, although they are less studied.
Equanimity is different from the rest. It is associated with greater acceptance, little internal dialogue, greater flow and great emotional regulation.
In today's psychology, in third-generation psychotherapies, brahmavihāras are considered useful tools that still have much to offer for the well-being of both healthy people and those affected by specific disorders.
BDE: Do you think the cultivation of brahmavihāras could be effectively adapted and applied in modern psychology and therapy within a secular context, similar to what has happened with mindfulness? What opportunities and challenges do you see in their integration into the mental health field? How might these practices enrich our current approach to emotional well-being?
JGC: I see no difficulty for these meditations to be incorporated into the daily practice of people who meditate (whether they practice any specific religion or are agnostic) and to be used in psychotherapy effectively.
The four qualities developed by the brahmavihāras are universal and have permeated, with greater or lesser intensity and perhaps with some cultural connotations, all societies and religions. Moreover, they are strengths or qualities identified by psychology and known to be associated with greater psychological well-being and less psychiatric pathology. They were already practiced in Hinduism, later in Buddhism and then in Jainism. Some contemplations of monotheistic religions are similar. And the model we present in the book (the same as in the tradition) is extremely neutral and can be used in a secular way without any problem. As has happened with mindfulness, and is already observed with compassion, I think they will be widely used by the population in the future.
BDE: What advice would you offer readers for effectively integrating the practices of the brahmavihāras into their daily lives?
JGC: Any meditation technique begins by practicing in a formal way, in 30-45 minute sessions or whatever duration is deemed appropriate, until we can do it almost effortlessly, because we have embodied it. The great difficulty and the measure of whether we practice correctly is that these practices permeate our mind and extrapolate into daily life. This is what we call informal meditation. We include in each of the brahmaviharas recommendations for their informal practice, in daily life, so that they reinforce the formal practice and we end up embodying these principles.
BDE: We would like to know more about the evolution of your work. How have your courses and seminars evolved over the last few years? Are there any recent changes you would like to highlight? What is your long-term vision for these courses in the field of mindfulness and meditation?
JGC: I have been meditating in the Buddhist tradition since the late 1970s. I was introduced to mindfulness in 1997 in Canada, but in Spain (and almost all of Europe) there were no conditions for using it in psychology until 2007 or so, when I published an article on the subject in a Spanish medical journal.
Our Master of Mindfulness at the University of Zaragoza started in 2013 and that was an opportunity to structure the knowledge, not only of mindfulness, but of compassion and acceptance, and to introduce elements of Buddhist psychology. In these years I have tried, with other friends and colleagues, to conduct research to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of these ancient techniques in medicine and psychology, but also in education, sport or in the business world.
The theoretical body has begun to include deconstructive techniques, something that we find particularly valuable, and a body of knowledge called contemplative sciences has been consolidated, which attempts to bring together everything that millenary spirituality can contribute to human wellbeing, evaluated by current science to identify the most therapeutic elements, in which contexts to use them and for which people.
In my opinion, the next and final step is the full collaboration between spiritual masters and scientists to bring Humanity to much higher levels of psychological well-being and spiritual realization.
Web links
https://www.editorialkairos.com/…/la-quintaesencia-de…
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Daniel Millet Gil holds a law degree from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a master's degree and a PhD in Buddhist Studies from the Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He received the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Award for Excellence in Buddhist Studies (2018-2019). He is a regular editor and author of the web platform Buddhistdoor en Español, as well as founder and president of the Dharma-Gaia Foundation (FDG), a non-profit organization dedicated to the academic teaching and dissemination of Buddhism in Spanish-speaking countries. This foundation also promotes and sponsors the Buddhist Film Festival of Catalonia. In addition, Millet serves as co-director of the Buddhist Studies program of the Fundació Universitat Rovira i Virgili (FURV), a joint initiative between the FDG and the FURV. In the publishing field, he directs both Editorial Dharma-Gaia and Editorial Unalome. He has published numerous articles and essays in academic and popularization journals, which are available in his Academia.edu profile: https://hku-hk.academia.edu/DanielMillet.
