The brahmavihārā (sublime attitudes, lit. "abodes of Brahma") is a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables (Pāli: appamaññā) or four infinite minds (Chinese: 四無量心). The brahmavihārā are:

According to the Metta Sutta, cultivation of the four immeasurables has the power to cause the practitioner to be reborn into a "Brahma realm" (Pāli: Brahmaloka).

Brahmavihārā may be parsed as "Brahma" and "vihāra", which is often rendered into English as "sublime" or "divine abodes".

Apramāṇa, usually translated as "the immeasurables", means "boundlessness, infinitude, a state that is illimitable". When developed to a high degree in meditation, these attitudes are said to make the mind "immeasurable" and like the mind of the loving Brahma (gods).

Other translations:

The four brahmavihārā are:

The brahmavihārā is a pre-Buddhist Brahminical concept, to which the Buddhist tradition gave its interpretation. The Digha Nikaya asserts that according to Buddha, "brahmavihārā is "that practice," and he then contrasts it with "my practice" as follows:

...that practice [namely, the mere cultivation of love and so forth, according to the fourfold instructions] is conducive not to turning away, nor to dispassion, nor quiet, nor to cessation, nor to direct knowledge, nor to enlightenment, nor nirvana, but only to rebirth in the world of Brahma.

...my practice is conducive to complete turning away, dispassion, cessation, quieting, direct knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana – specifically the eightfold noble path (...)