Classical Yoga · compiled by Patanjali
Yoga Sutras 1.33
Four attitudes that keep the mind clear
मैत्रीकरुणामुदितोपेक्षाणां सुखदुःखपुण्यापुण्यविषयाणां भावनातश्चित्तप्रसादनम्॥
By cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and equanimity toward the non-virtuous, the mind retains its undisturbed calmness.
What this verse points to
Friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the suffering, gladness at the virtuous, equanimity toward the harmful. Patanjali offers these as mental hygiene — they are prescribed for the sake of your own clarity, not primarily as ethics.
Each one blocks a specific corrosion: envy, indifference, resentment, and agitation. The sutra is unusually practical about the fact that how you hold other people determines what your mind is like when you sit down.
Sit with it
Pick the attitude you find hardest and apply it to one specific person before your next sit.
About the Yoga Sutras
The Yoga Sutras are 196 terse aphorisms compiled by Patanjali, organised into four books: samadhi (absorption), sadhana (practice), vibhuti (attainments), and kaivalya (liberation). The style is deliberately compressed — each sutra is a memory-thread meant to be unpacked by a teacher — and the text is the foundational statement of the eight-limbed (ashtanga) path.
References to this text are given as book.sutra — here, 1.33.