Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Fabricated Path, Unfabricated Goal… It’s to motivate you so you can get to what he calls renunciate pleasure and renunciate equanimity: the pleasure that comes when you do attain the goal, and equanimity when you reflect on the sense of peace that comes with the goal. One of Ajaan Suwat’s images is that we eat food because we want to be full. Now, fullness is one …
- Mental Balance… On top of that, the Buddha notices that when you develop unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion, appreciation, equanimity, if you’ve got any past bad karma, the effects, if they hit you when your mind is in expanded state like that, won’t be nearly as strong. He makes a comparison a large salt crystal in water. If you put the salt crystal into a …
- Respect for Concentration… From there you go to serenity, concentration, equanimity—all the factors of awakening. You can build them right here just on these four little steps. So appreciate these things. They’re not much, but they have a lot of potential if you pay attention, if you learn how to appreciate them. Don’t be in too great a hurry to push through the steps …
- Test Everything… Develop mindfulness, concentration, discernment, goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity, gratitude. All of these are good things to be developing. So we approach the path with a certain humility. On the one hand, the Buddha is encouraging us to have faith in our own abilities to test the path—it’s something we can do—but at the same time we have to remember that …
- Guarding Against Trouble… Why don’t you have discernment doing the looking? Why don’t you have goodwill doing the looking? Equanimity doing the looking? After all, the reason why you’re looking will also stir up results, and you don’t want to stir up results that go to more greed, more aversion, more delusion. So you look carefully at how you’re using your senses …
- Alone & with Others… different levels of subtlety in your focus, ease, rapture, equanimity, stillness in the concentration. And although this is not in the Pali Canon, it’s useful to put a post-it note on what you’ve noticed, because you have to remember you’re still exploring. What may seem like a really refined, still state of concentration at one stage in the practice, may …
- Character… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. These are all qualities that we can develop in daily life in our duties at work, our duties at home, and whatever other duties we have as we live in the human society. See all these duties as an opportunity to develop something good inside yourself. As one of our chants says, the …
- What to Keep in Mind… When you can breathe through the physical side of the thought, then you can turn around and look at the mental side with a lot more equanimity. Ask yourself, “Where is this coming from? What are the assumptions here?” To do this, you have to have developed really strong concentration. Otherwise, the analysis will destroy the concentration, and the mind will just be wandering …
- A Well-stocked Memory… rapture, calm, concentration, equanimity. But there’s another description in which mindfulness is defined as being mindful of the Dhamma teachings you’ve memorized, that you’ve learned: what you’ve read, what you’ve listened to. Then analysis of dhammas has to do with sorting through what you’ve listened to, to figure out what’s skillful and what’s not, what can …
- Take Down Your Sails… Know that the Buddha’s teachings on equanimity and patience are important here. If a sound comes to the ear, remind yourself, “There is a sound at the ear,” and don’t build any more stories beyond that. It may be true that so-and-so said something and it was harmful or hurtful, either to yourself or other people. But for the time …
- The Need for Right View… It’s not that you somehow reach the point of non-doing, a ground of being, or that you reach the unconditioned simply because you’re watching things with equanimity. There is a doing even in the equanimity. There is a doing in the sensation of oneness, infinite consciousness. You’ve made certain choices. And when you learn how to look at your concentration …
- Concentration & Renunciation… We can’t have everything, and the need to develop good qualities in the mind has to take precedence—qualities like generosity, determination, patience, equanimity. Sometimes learning to do without a certain pleasure is like a trade. This is what renunciation is all about. It’s interesting that in the ten perfections, concentration is not listed. But it’s there under renunciation, because without …
- Suffering is an Addiction… In the Buddha’s instructions on how to help yourself through helping others—treating other people with goodwill and with sympathy, with patience and equanimity—the Buddha says it’s immediately good for them but it’s going to be good for you in the long run. It may go against your habits, but again, your habits are causing suffering. As for helping others …
- A Good Example for the World… But then there’s also the reflection on equanimity: All beings are the owners of their actions. This is our reality check, because we realize that the suffering of the world is just too much for us to go out and solve entirely. There are limits on our time and our energy, and we have no control over other people. After all, people are …
- One Foot in the Present… Two, develop thoughts of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity directed to the person you harmed, directed to yourself, and directed to all beings. These attitudes help to ensure that you’ll be more likely to work from skillful motivations, skillful intentions as you act. This way, having the proper attitude toward the present moment, toward what comes up in the present moment …
- How to Be Self-Centered… The equanimity is for realizing that this will take time, so you’re willing to put in time and not get discouraged by the first couple of times you stumble, or when things are going well and all of a sudden there’s a dry patch and they’re not going well at all. As Ajaan Fuang would say, learn how to play at …
- Right Exertion at Play… This is why the Buddha encourages you not simply to let go and be equanimous. You work on developing good qualities in the mind. And in doing that, the mind isn’t empty- handed and it’s not going to start thinking up some really nifty things to distract itself in the wrong way. In other words, it’s not going to be developing …
- Bojjhanga: Discernment Fosters Concentration… That’s how you get to the qualities of rapture, calm, concentration, and equanimity. In other words, you get the mind to be willing to put its thoughts aside. And then you can be with the breath. And it’s through working with the breath that you can create that sense of refreshment or rapture, which in some cases may be strong, and in …
- Will Meditation Make You Grim & Dull?… You don’t want to have just a sense of equanimity as you go through life. You want to have a sense of positive enjoyment in how it feels to have a body. One of the reasons you work with the breath is so that you feel comfortable inside your body. No matter what the world outside may say about your body, you’re …
- Compassion for People on Fire… To make sure that that our goodwill and compassion don’t degenerate into sadness, we also have to practice equanimity: realizing that beings live in line with their karma. There are some beings we can help and a lot we can’t. So we focus on what we can do. Of course, the primary being we have to worry about is ourselves. We’re …
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