Search results for: "Equanimity"

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  2. Limitations
    The chants we had just now on developing an attitude of unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion, unlimited empathetic joy, and unlimited equanimity: Those are among the few ways the mind really can be without limit. When you realize that your true happiness doesn’t have to depend on causing anybody any suffering, then it is possible to have unlimited goodwill, wishing all beings happiness. If … 
  3. Withstanding Pleasure & Pain
     … You’ve gotten past pain, you’ve gotten past pleasure, and the mind gets more and more into the state of equanimity. Now, it’s a nice state; it’s an enjoyable state of equanimity, but it’s much more subtle than the pleasure you’ve gotten past. This is how you get the mind deeper into concentration. You’ve got to learn how … 
  4. Our Variegated Minds
     … As for the people who never seem to want to learn from their mistakes in the search for happiness, that’s where you have to exercise a lot of equanimity. This, too, is a skillful mental state that you have to learn how to exercise when it’s necessary. This is what the brahmavihāras are all about. They’re not just feelings of goodwill … 
  5. Justice vs. Skillfulness
     … Skillfulness July 31, 2016 When we develop the brahma-viharas—attitudes of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity—we try to make them unlimited. In other words, we develop goodwill for all beings, compassion for all, empathetic joy for all, and we have to learn how to apply thoughts of equanimity to all when necessary. The problem is that although our attitudes may be unlimited … 
  6. Right & Wrong Decisions
     … goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Goodwill is a wish for happiness. Compassion is when you see suffering and you want to learn how to put an end to that suffering. Empathetic joy is when you see there already is happiness and you don’t resent other people’s happiness, and you value your own happiness, you try to keep it going. Equanimity is … 
  7. Determined Goodwill
     … Even when we go through all the brahmaviharas and get to equanimity, the reason we use equanimity is for the sake of mature goodwill, realizing that there are areas where we would like to see people do what’s skillful and to experience the results of skillful actions, but for one reason or another, it’s not going to happen. If you have genuine … 
  8. The Four Jhanas
     … relaxed and equanimous. In the Canon the distinction between these two levels is described in terms of two different images. One is of a lake fed by a cool spring: That’s the second jhana. There’s a sense of upwelling, a movement of the waters. The cool water from the spring spreads to fill the whole lake effortlessly. There’s no conscious effort … 
  9. Whole-body Consciousness
     … This, the Buddha points out, leaves you with a strong sense of equanimity. But he doesn’t stop there. Remember, equanimity, too, is a constructed state. He says you could apply this equanimity to any of the formless jhānas and you could stay there for a long, long time. But the fact that it’s applied—the fact that a perception maintains it—means … 
  10. Relating to Results
     … One is if we realize that certain things are beyond our control and so we develop equanimity. We want there to be peace, happiness, justice, and well-being throughout the world, but it’s the nature of human society that there will be a lot of unrest, unhappiness, and injustice. There may be areas where we can make a difference, but for the most … 
  11. Strength of Mindfulness
     … You’re not just here looking at things, accepting whatever, I was reading recently an article saying that mindfulness is basically a matter of watching with equanimity. Well, equanimity sometimes is a good thing to have on hand, and sometimes it’s not. If it makes you complacent, if it makes you indifferent, makes you apathetic, then that’s the wrong quality of mind … 
  12. Peace of Mind
     … You know when you’ve improved the mind in terms of its virtue, in terms of its kindness, in terms of equanimity when equanimity is needed, discernment when that’s needed, powers of endurance, patience, peace. These are things we can develop within. And doing this is not a selfish project. We’re not just sitting here gazing at our navels. When you develop … 
  13. Determination
     … This is the kind of endurance and equanimity the Buddha’s talking about, like the endurance and equanimity of a soldier. Sometimes in the battle he has setbacks. Sometimes he has to endure hardships. But he can’t let himself get upset by them. At the same time, he doesn’t give up. He keeps wanting to gain victory. But he realizes that it … 
  14. Perceptions of Earth & Space
     … You need to develop some equanimity and some patience. That’s what this perception of earth is supposed to supply. When the breath is uncomfortable, you don’t get upset. You watch it for a while and try to figure out, “Why is it uncomfortable?” We’re making the mind like earth not so it can be just a clod of dirt sitting there … 
  15. An Even Keel
     … This quality of equanimity and having an even keel depends on several other qualities that are really worth developing. One is just that: your ability to take the long view on things. You realize, for example, in your practice that there are going be ups and there are going to be downs, and there are going to be up-agains and down-agains. And … 
  16. Suppressed Emotions
     … Just be equanimous. Don’t get excited. Don’t get worked up about things.” And then you try to convince yourself that that’s what’s actually happening. You see ideals of what an enlightened person is like — very calm, peaceful, equanimous — and you try to clone the calm, to clone the equanimity. Remember, though, that Right Cloning is not one of the factors … 
  17. Everything Gathers Around the Breath
     … The pleasure can get more and more refined until it’s just a sense of equanimity— balance, equilibrium—and as you do that, you’re working with the mind. You’re gladdening the mind. Working with pleasure and equanimity, you’re making it more steady. And at the same time, you’re releasing it from, say, the heaviness of rapture. Or even before the … 
  18. Attachment vs. Affection
     … So here you have to exercise equanimity, realizing that sometimes affection can draw you into unskillful mind states that you’ve got to watch out for. This is why the brahma-viharas don’t contain just unlimited goodwill, compassion, and empathetic joy, all of which basically come down to goodwill. Compassion is what goodwill feels when it encounters suffering. Empathetic joy is what goodwill … 
  19. A Meritorious Heart
     … And you develop equanimity in areas where things can’t be changed, accepting the fact that there’s a lot of unskillful karma going around in the world, so there are going to be some negative consequences there. Or when things have already happened that were unfortunate, you have to have equanimity about them. The next question is: What do you do about them … 
  20. Goodwill Without Limits
     … Then there’s equanimity for the times when you can’t make a change in other people’s behavior, or there are things in your own mind that you can’t change yet. You’re equanimous about them, but that doesn’t mean you give up on them. You certainly don’t give up on yourself. It means simply that you learn to have … 
  21. Make the Most of What You’ve Got
    When the Buddha taught meditation to his son, Rāhula, he started with some lessons in patience and equanimity. He said, “Make your mind like earth. When people throw disgusting things on the earth, throw trash on the earth, the earth doesn’t pull away in disgust. “Make your mind like water,” he said. “When people use water to wash away disgusting things, the water … 
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