Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- At Home with the Breath… You could start with the thoughts we had just now about goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. These are thoughts that induce a sense of well-being. You remind yourself that you do wish other beings well. Your goodwill may not be totally universal yet, but you can work on that. The extent to which you can feel compassion for people who are suffering …
- Conviction & Persistence… We’re learning to be equanimous and accepting.” The Buddha teaches us to be equanimous about some things and not equanimous about others. As he once said, the secret to his success as a meditator was, one, discontent with skillful qualities—in other words, not resting on his laurels, not saying, “Well, this is good enough.” There’s always the question, “Where is there …
- Two Guardian Meditations… There are many levels of equanimity. The most basic is the level that comes simply from making up your mind that you’re not going to react to anything that comes up in terms of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, ideas. You aren’t going to let yourself get upset by the negative things that are happening in the world, the negative things …
- Multi-Dimensional Dhamma… He asked the monk living in the hut, “Why aren’t you fixing the roof?” The monk replied, “I’m practicing equanimity, learning how to sleep in the half of the hut that’s still sheltered.” Ajaan Chah said, “That’s the equanimity of a water buffalo. Fix the roof.” So when you’re looking at the practice, you have to look at many …
- Mindfulness 2.0… So a lot of his teaching had to do with equanimity and patience. He probably saw that Westerners lacked these qualities and that they needed them to be reinforced before they could really get started on anything further in the practice. Our society’s in sore need of equanimity and patience, which is why a lot of what gets sold as mindfulness nowadays is …
- Success by Approximation… Beyond that, there are levels of concentration, levels of equanimity, levels of right view. These things will progress as you go on the path, until the mind is totally free of passion and aversion. But to get there, you have to be passionate about the path. And your initial motivation may have a bit of aversion in it. You’re averse to suffering: That …
- Hunker Down… As that passage on equanimity reminds us, there are certain times where it’s simply the force of karma that the situations are going to be bad. There’s not much you can do about them. But the important things are that you maintain your equanimity and learn how to hide out. Come out when there are times you actually can make a difference …
- Disconnecting… That means that their goodwill, compassion, and equanimity are total and pure. Of course, even their lives aren’t totally perfect. They can stay there for a while and then they fall back down. But it makes you think about nibbāna, where the Buddha says there’s no need to feed at all. There’s no hunger, no nostalgia, no regret. Because that’s …
- Helping Others… At the same time, when you’re helping other people, you develop qualities inside that are going to be good for your own practice—endurance, equanimity, goodwill, sympathy—as you develop these qualities in helping other people. Notice that the Buddha includes endurance in there, because, as he says, it’s not going to be easy. Sometimes the people we love the most are …
- Rewriting the Mind’s Song… Because those attitudes of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity are Brahma attitudes—the attitudes of a being on a very high level. And you would like to bring your mind up to that level. Otherwise, you’re on the human level, which has lots of ups and downs—goodwill and then ill will, then goodwill and then ill will. Usually, we’re …
- Your Intentions Come First… Then we have the reflections on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, to remind us that we want a happiness that’s true, something that really lasts and doesn’t harm anyone. The equanimity also reminds us that there is only so much we can do in the world, and that if we want true happiness, we need to go beyond kamma. So these …
- Mindfulness of Death… Then the Buddha has you go on and do the same thing with feelings of pleasure and feelings of equanimity. In other words, if you’re able to get the mind into deep concentration at that point, you realize that these states, too, are dependent on the body. The pleasure of jhana, the equanimity of jhana: They, too, are things you have to let …
- Freedom from Fear… On the other hand, if you have strong ideas about what you should be doing, realizing that this is where your happiness lies, then it’s a lot easier to have equanimity with regard to other people—patience, endurance. As the Buddha said, if you develop these qualities, it’s beneficial for other people and it’s good for you, too. That’s because …
- You’ve Got Friends… This is one of the reasons why we think of thoughts of goodwill for all beings, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity—all the brahmaviharas—to all beings before we meditate to open up the mind to a little bit of infinity, at least for a few moments. That’s infinity in space. Also think, as the Buddha says, of the inconceivable beginning of time. Which …
- An Auspicious Day… The same with feelings of equanimity. Even equanimity can be unskilful at times, so you have to be alert to when it should be developed and when it shouldn’t. You have to remember to look at these feelings as events, as part of a causal process, realising that you’re doing a lot of the fabricating. Pains don’t just happen; pleasures don …
- Not What You Are, What You Do… And then there’s equanimity for the things that you can’t change, the bad habits you aren’t able to fully eradicate, or the problems that come in from past kamma that you can’t alter. The purpose of equanimity is to keep you focused on the things you can change, so that you don’t waste energy focusing on the things you …
- A Private Matter… The same with empathetic joy and equanimity: When the breath is going well, appreciate it. Enjoy it. As for the uncomfortable things in the breath that you can’t change, you’ve just got to watch them for a while. The word for equanimity — upekkha — actually relates to that quality of just watching, looking on. In other words, you see that this may not …
- In Your Power… This allows the mind to settle down with a sense of peace, concentration, equanimity. Those are the factors for awakening. That’s what you’ve got to develop. There is work to be done. You have to will these things to happen. It’s not that they’re going to happen on their own. They happen through trial and error. You figure out what …
- Bedside Dhamma… If you can maintain your solidity, you can maintain your equanimity in spite of what the person does or says, and in spite of the course of the illness. You’re meeting up with a very clear lesson in the things that are beyond our control, and you’ve got to learn how to maintain your equanimity in the face if that. The purpose …
- Judicious vs. Judgmental… Finally there’s the attitude of equanimity, which is useful in many ways. When we’re working here in the meditation and the results aren’t coming as fast as we’d like, equanimity teaches patience. It reminds us that the principle of action often requires that things take time. If you’re working on something that takes time, try to develop equanimity. That …
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