Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Ānāpānasati Day… As the mind gets concentrated, it settles into equanimity. The equanimity that comes when your needs for a sense of inner well-being have been met allows you to view yourself, to view the world, with a lot more stability. Then, based on these seven qualities, you gain clear knowing and release. So it’s all there in breath meditation. Ajaan Fuang summarizes it …
- Step Outside the World… mindfulness, analysis of qualities, persistence, rapture, calm, concentration, and equanimity. Mindfulness leads you there, and then when you get to the fourth jhana—where you’ve got the last two factors for awakening—you’ve got purity of mindfulness. That’s the only place where mindfulness is really pure. At the same time, the mind is really solid. It’s firmly in its frame …
- Choices in the Present… Sometimes you develop the analyzing side that goes along with wisdom and discernment; at other times, you develop the calmer side that goes along with concentration, equanimity, serenity. So you to have lots of options here in the present moment. You’re not just stuck with whatever comes up. You realize that in this field of seeds here you have lots of different kinds …
- Joy in Getting It Right… Equanimity not of the flesh—the equanimity that comes when getting into fourth jhana—is also something you have to develop. As for the mind states, they’re usually paired—concentrated, unconcentrated; released, unreleased—the implication being, if you think of the duties of the four noble truths, that if an unskillful mind state is there, you want to switch it over to its …
- Friends with Pain… Then you follow them up with thoughts of equanimity, reflecting on the truth that we all are heir to our actions. The things we experience in life are due to our actions. These thoughts serve several purposes. One is to remind you that no matter how much you may want other people to be happy, there are cases where because of their past actions …
- Inner Discontent… He doesn’t tell you to accept everything with equanimity or just let it be. A sense of contentment, a sense of equanimity works in some cases, but not all. Admittedly, an important part of the practice is learning to gain a sense of when you can just let things be, either because you don’t want to get involved with them at all …
- The Desire for Things to Be Different… The first two ajaans, who were senior to Ajaan Chah, basically said, “Practice equanimity.” But Ajaan Chah said, “Well, equanimity is useful, but you have to apply wisdom at the same time.” So you don’t just let go, let go, leaving things as they are. Have some good sense about what you should let go and leave alone, and what you really have …
- Delight… You can’t just tell yourself, “Well, the Buddha teaches us to be equanimous about all things, so try to clone that equanimous attitude about your defilements, too.” That doesn’t give you much strength. The desire to stick with the path needs to be nourished. You need to learn how to talk to yourself about what a good path this is. Ultimately, it …
- The Wheel of Dhamma… You hear descriptions of the awakened mind and you think, “Okay, it’s equanimous and patient. I’ll will be equanimous and patient, and not try to strive, not to strive for anything, because the awakened mind doesn’t strive.” But the reason the awakened mind doesn’t strive is because it’s already arrived at where it wants to go. As long as …
- Mature Strategies… He also uses the development of goodwill — immeasurable goodwill, compassion, appreciation, and equanimity — to clean up one of the major problems we have in this sense of self: our sense of responsibility, knowing that in the past we’ve done things that are not all that good, and that the results will come back to haunt us. He has us develop these sublime attitudes …
- Layers of Selves… When you’re dealing with the pleasure of concentration, that means going from pleasure to equanimity. But if you’re dealing with pain, calming it doesn’t necessarily mean making the pain go away. Some pains will go away when you work with the breath, but others are going to stay right there. What you want to calm is the effect of the pain …
- Bare vs. Appropriate Attention… If you’re going to look at stress and pain with any equanimity, with any steadiness, the mind has to have a strong sense of a good solid foundation, a strong sense of inner well-being so that it doesn’t feel threatened by the pain, doesn’t keep giving in to its old agendas around pain, i.e., what to do to get …
- The Wisdom of Self-regulation… A lot of the ajaans in Thailand noticed that when they were getting Westerners to come study with them, the two big problems they had were patience and equanimity. So that’s what they taught them. Some people came away from those teachings thinking that that was all there is. Actually those are just the beginning. When the Buddha was teaching Rahula how to …
- Bases of Success… Then, at the end of the chanting, we had the chant on equanimity, which is also a way of thinking about kamma as it relates to all beings. It’s for the sake of realizing that there are a lot of things in the world over which you can have no control. If you get worked up about them, you’re wasting your energy …
- Right View & Right Resolve… So part of right resolve is to resolve on non-ill will—in other words, goodwill or equanimity—and harmlessness—compassion or equanimity—because you realize that suffering is not just an abstract topic. It’s something you’re feeling, and it’s based on something you’re doing. Because it hurts, you’ve got to change your actions. That’s the wise response …
- Top Priorities… The same with equanimity and patience: There are some things you have to be equanimous about and other things that you can’t just let go, that you really have to work on. There are some things that you have to be patient with, some things you have to tolerate: difficult physical situations, the heat when it’s hot, the cold when it’s …
- Judging Your Meditation… It also helps to develop equanimity in the face of things you can’t change. Equanimity doesn’t mean you just get indifferent toward everything. You get indifferent toward the things you can’t have an effect on, and you focus your energy on the things that you can—an important lesson in discernment. Also, because we’re judging actions here, you have to …
- A Soiled, Oily Rag… Notice that that’s not the ultimate equanimity. The Buddha never said nirvana is the ultimate equanimity. He said it’s the ultimate happiness. You don’t turn your mind into a resigned oatmeal kind of state. You find that by letting go, things open up immensely. No limits of space or time. And no need to put in any effort. As to whether …
- Faith in Goodness… That’s why the brahmaviharas include equanimity as well. You think of all the many, many lifetimes we’ve been through, and all the unresolved relationships we’ve had. It’s very rare that a relationship comes to good closure. They start abruptly, then they end abruptly, and in the meantime there can be some very harmful, very painful things that happen and never …
- Hold on for All You’re Worth… And then equanimity. That’s the reality check, realizing there are a lot of things in the world we can’t change: people for whom we have goodwill and yet they’re not willing to act on the causes of happiness; people for whom we have compassion, yet they can’t seem to get out of their troubles. But there are areas where we …
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