Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Here to Learn… You start out with goodwill, compassion, and empathetic joy, but there will be cases where you have to develop equanimity as well. You don’t go straight to the equanimity. You maintain the goodwill, but there are times when you have to fall back on equanimity for your own peace of mind. So, you’re here to learn, and if you can maintain that …
- Anger… And the attitude the Buddha recommends most is equanimity: equanimity in the sense of stepping back from the situation and seeing it as part of a universal pattern, not just as something personal between you and the person you’re angry with. One of the traditional ways to develop equanimity is to contemplate the principle of karma: that what you do is important. Particularly …
- Remorse… Equanimity for yourself, equanimity for everyone. Yet he also says you have to develop discernment. After all, sometimes you can do very unskillful things based on what you think is the compassionate thing to do, but you can’t simply trust your loving heart to tell you what to do in a given situation, thinking that where there’s a lot of love, that …
- Generosity & Virtue as Skills… Ehis is a matter of watching yourself, learning how to step back from what you’re doing and judge it with a certain amount of equanimity and patience. There was a famous teacher in Thailand who had a lot of Western students, and he realized that these were the two qualities that they were most lacking in: equanimity and patience. Again, it was probably …
- Strengthening Discernment… Some people think the path is just being equanimous, learning how to watch things arise and pass, pass, pass away, and not get involved. But equanimity, it turns out, is also a kind of fabrication, and you need more than just equanimity in order to really understand fabrications. One of the best ways to develop discernment around fabrications is to actually put the factors …
- Faith in Karma… But the reflection on everyone’s karma is also a reflection to induce equanimity for the things that you can’t change, particularly the things that you’ve already done in the past or the results of things that you’ve done in the past. Not only things that you’ve done, but also things that other people have done. There are people who …
- The Brahmaviharas on the Path… Part of the discernment also lies in the exercise of equanimity, realizing when it’s appropriate to develop equanimity as an act of kindness to yourself and to others as opposed to when you focus more directly on the other brahmaviharas. But you also have to understand what it means to wish for people to be happy. You want them to do things that …
- Turtle Meditation… That’s when you exercise equanimity. If there are parts of the body that are painful and the breath can’t do anything for the pain, you learn how to exercise equanimity there. This way you’re getting practice in the brahmaviharas, learning how to develop a goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity that are universal, limitless. Then you learn how to apply these …
- Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas… It’s because of this freedom of choice we need to have equanimity. You learn equanimity as you’re working with the breath. You realize that some parts of the body won’t change no matter how well you breathe, no matter where you focus, no matter how strong your concentration—but you can work around them. You don’t have to let them …
- The Questions of Suffering… The Buddha says that’s the lowest level of equanimity. He calls it “house based equanimity,” where you just learn how to be patient and endure and try not to be reactive as things come and go, whether they’re pleasant sounds or unpleasant sounds; pleasant sights or unpleasant sights. Trying to keep the mind non-reactive: That’s the lowest level of equanimity …
- Metta… compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Compassion is what goodwill feels on seeing people who are suffering, or who are doing actions that would cause suffering. Notice one of those phrases in the chant just now: “May no beings despise anybody. May no beings harm anybody.” In other words, we don’t want anybody to act in ways that will cause harm, harming others by …
- Seriously Happy… They made the mistake of expressing equanimity as saying, “May all beings be the owners of their actions.” Which, when you think about it, sounds like a curse. Equanimity is more a statement of fact. It’s the reality check. Even though you wish for all beings to be happy, you have to realize you can’t make them happy. They themselves will have …
- Lust… Because after all, equanimity and mindfulness are fabrications too. They’re very subtle fabrications, equanimity in particular. There’s a belief—you hear it sometimes—that mindfulness and equanimity are unfabricated. But that’s not the case. They’re part of the path. They’re something you do, something you work on developing. And at an advanced stage in the practice, you do let …
- Can All Beings Be Happy?… That’s where equanimity has to come in. Remember, goodwill and compassion aren’t just there on their own, they have to be coupled with empathetic joy and equanimity. Actually the goodwill, the compassion, and the empathetic joy all go together. Goodwill is the wish for true happiness. When you see beings are suffering, you want them to be released from their suffering—that …
- Death World… So in areas that are beyond your control—or that you could control, but you realize that it would pull you away from things that are more important—that’s where you need to develop equanimity, that that’s just the way things are. Equanimity functions to keep your focus in the proper place, back on your actions. Even more so with the second …
- Determination… This then connects with the perfection of equanimity. As we were saying last night, equanimity that’s simply a result of telling yourself, “I’m going to stay equanimous, I’m going to stay non-reactive,” can get very depressed after a while. But if you’re coming from a sense of fullness, a sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier …
- The Seven Factors for Awakening… They start with mindfulness as a factor for awakening, then there’s analysis of qualities, persistence or energy, rapture, tranquility or serenity, concentration, and equanimity. Of these factors, the Buddha said that mindfulness is the one that’s always appropriate. Mindfulness here means both mindfulness and alertness. Mindfulness is the ability to keep something in mind. Like right now: You’re trying to keep …
- The Path Has a Goal… Householder equanimity and renunciate equanimity. Householder grief is realizing that you’d like to have pleasant sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas, but you’ve got unpleasant ones. For most people, the antidote to that is to find pleasant ones, i.e., householder joy. But that’s not the path the Buddha recommends. He recommends that if you have householder grief, try …
- The Positive Side of Heedfulness… This, too, is a development of the qualities you need in the practice—your powers of patience and endurance, your powers of equanimity. And learn to think of these things as powers or strengths. Equanimity is not just a weak indifference. It’s being okay with whatever comes up and ready to deal with whatever problems come up as they arise, even when they …
- Metta Isn’t Love… In this way, metta can live with equanimity. Love cannot. It’s hard to be equanimous about people you love, especially when they’re being mistreated by others or when they simply age, grow ill, and die—which is sure to happen to all of us. Metta is the attitude that allows you to live in the world in a mature way, in a …
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