Summary: Buddhist theories of emotions and mental experience treat love and friendship with great psychological subtlety. We’ll look closely at the 5th century Indian scholar Buddhaghosa, and his treatment of four kinds of love: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are called the four "immeasurables" because one can cultivate and expand them to embrace larger and larger circles of concern. The talk sketches out an important part of human life, that is, how we are connected emotionally to others’ experience, which is of interest for both psychology and ethics.
