Search results for: "Equanimity"

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  2. 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 … 
  3. 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 … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. 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 … 
  6. 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 … 
  7. 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 … 
  8. 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 … 
  9. 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 … 
  10. 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 … 
  11. Breathing to Awakening
     … It’s there but it’s so subtle that it’s more like equanimity. Everything is very, very still. You learn how to maintain that stillness with a sense of balance until there’s a sense of equanimity in both body and mind. That’s how dealing with the breath relates to the seven factors for awakening. Then they, in turn, relate to clear … 
  12. Look After Yourself with Ease
     … That’s where you have to exercise equanimity. But it’s also a useful lesson to turn around and reflect on yourself: You don’t want to ever be in a situation where you’re suffering, you can’t handle it, and you’re beyond someone else’s reach. In other words, you don’t want to put them in that difficult situation. So … 
  13. All Four Tetrads at Once
     … And as for dhammas, qualities, you have to develop a quality of equanimity to put aside all your worldly concerns right from the beginning. So even as you’re first settling in with the breath, you’ve got all four aspects right there. You can read the different tetrads as alternative instructions as to what to do as you get started. First you analyze … 
  14. Where Perceptions Can Take You
     … Finally, you bring the mind to equanimity, a sense of balance, to the point where it doesn’t seem like the in-and-out breath is moving at all. The breath energy has saturated the body. Now, if you’re afraid of not breathing, you won’t be able to maintain that state. So you need another perception: that you don’t need to … 
  15. Training the Mind to Train the Mind
     … And then, finally, there’s the reflection on equanimity, realizing there are some things we simply cannot change, some things in life over which we have no control at all: primarily, the actions of other people. They have the right to choose whatever they want to do. Some other things you can’t control are your past actions. They’re already done. The results … 
  16. Undomesticated Happiness
     … We start with the perception of earth as a beginning foundation for endurance and equanimity, but we need to give the mind a more solid foundation than just a perception by getting it deeper into concentration. You need an equanimity based not just on holding on and making yourself determined and resistant. You’ve got to possess some well-being inside that’s independent … 
  17. Expanding Your Awareness
     … Some of the texts talks about developing the seven factors of awakening based on goodwill, compassion, sympathetic joy, or equanimity. Others talk of the factors of awakening being based on this enlarged state of awareness in the body. Either way, you’ve got a foundation right here. Even in day-to-day life, these two forms of expanded awareness are really good, really helpful … 
  18. No Happiness without Restraint
     … within those restraints. Back in the 60’s and 70’s when Westerners started going to the forest in Thailand, the ajaans there noticed that their Western students lacked two qualities: equanimity and patience. You can imagine what they would have thought of the kids now. Back in those days it was just TV and the movies. Now there’s a constant barrage from … 
  19. Emotion
     … This means you have to learn how to develop equanimity toward the people you love, so that when bad things happen to them, you don’t get knocked off course. You can remain calm and clear-headed and be as helpful as possible. So you want to practice that ability to develop equanimity even toward people you really love. As for people you don … 
  20. Chanting Before Meditation
     … You develop equanimity for things you can’t change so that you can give energy to your real responsibility: You’ve got to focus on your actions. This, again, is how to put aside greed and distress with reference to the world. You’re not distressed about other people’s suffering. You’re not greedy for the happiness they have. You realize you’ve … 
  21. Potentials for Awakening
     … You learn either to have goodwill for others or at least to be equanimous about them. The same with harmfulness: You’re not here to punish anybody. You’re here to look into your own mind, understand what’s going wrong in the mind, and learn how to change it. This is how analysis of qualities moves into the next factor for awakening, which … 
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