Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- 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 …
- A Pleasure Without Stories… There’s pleasure in mental equanimity, physical pleasure. All the way up through the third jhana, there’s got to be pleasure of some kind because the mind needs that. As the Buddha said, you can’t tear yourself away from your attachment to sensuality unless you’ve got this sort of pleasure. And it’s paccattam, as the Buddha said: It’s something …
- Recollection of the Buddha… It requires commitment, equanimity, patience, endurance: all those tough virtues. We have to find some way to generate desire inside, so that the tough virtues don’t seem quite so tough and so forbidding. It’s here that the guardian meditations are useful. This is a list of meditation topics that doesn’t come in the Canon. It comes someplace later. I don’t …
- The Buddha’s Basic Therapy… Because whatever difficulties come up, you can say, “Well, I must’ve done something in the past.” And it’s not to blame yourself for it, but just to have a better attitude of equanimity for the hardships that inevitably come up in life. At the same time, you can realize that here you are, a human being. The fact that you’re a …
- The Constancy of the Body… good, strong equanimity; a good, solid foundation inside. And we’re taught our lesson about that property of knowingness by looking at the properties in the body. You’ve got the earth, water, fire, the energy of the breath. These are basic properties that let you know that you’ve got a body here. And they’re always there. Sometimes one may be more …
- The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless… Renunciation—in other words, putting an end to your desire for sensuality, seeing that renunciation would be a good thing, and then trying to act on that; Non-ill will—in other words, goodwill or equanimity whenever it’s appropriate; and then, Harmlessness, which is the same as compassion. You resolve on making these the motives of your actions consistently. From these resolves come …
- How to Think about Death… There’s generosity, there’s virtue, there’s renunciation—the ability to step back from sensual pleasures and find a higher level of pleasure in a concentrated mind—discernment, persistence—your powers of endurance—truth, determination, goodwill, equanimity. These are things of lasting value. They might not be as hard as the hardwood of release, but at least they’re not just twigs and …
- A Poker Mind… Then you let the pleasure die away, so that you’ve just got breath, equanimity, and awareness. And then the in-and-out breathing will gradually stop. There will still be breath energy in the body. In fact, it’s the connectedness of the breath energy in the body that allows your in-and-out breathing to stop. You don’t force it to …
- The Uses of Concentration… The only way you’re going to look at your own intentions with any degree of fairness or equanimity is by getting the mind to settle down and be still, to maintain a sense of wellbeing, just being right here. When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, I was struck early on by the sense that he didn’t fully trust me …
- The Particulars of Your Suffering… Then there’s equanimity, realizing that there’s an awful lot going on, both in the world and in you, that your choices cannot change. There are people you would like to see happier than they are, but they’re not. There are things you can’t change in one way or another in your own life. You realize that other people have the …
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