妙法蓮華經玄義 4.5

4.5

Once the practitioner has internally realized the four dhyānas and wishes externally to cultivate merit and virtue, they should learn the four immeasurables. This has general cultivation and specific cultivation. For general cultivation, the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: 'This loving-kindness can be cultivated in the interval of the four dhyānas of the form realm.' This statement is general. For specific cultivation, in the first dhyāna there is the discrimination of initial and sustained thought, so cultivating compassion is easy; with the factor of joy, cultivating sympathetic joy is easy; with the factor of pleasure, cultivating loving-kindness is easy; with the factor of one-pointedness of mind, cultivating equanimity is easy. Furthermore, in the first dhyāna cultivating compassion is easy; in the second dhyāna cultivating sympathetic joy is easy; in the third dhyāna cultivating loving-kindness is easy; in the fourth dhyāna cultivating equanimity is easy. These are the locations for cultivating the four immeasurable concentrations. Furthermore, at the time of cultivation, one conditions upon the other person's characteristics of departing from suffering and obtaining happiness, rejoicing, and equanimity, and enters concentration. When it is activated, internally one attains the dharmas of joy, pleasure, and equanimity, and externally one sees the other person departing from suffering and obtaining happiness; or internally one attains it while externally not seeing it, or externally one sees it while internally not attaining it, distinguishing between the deviant and the correct, and so forth.