Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Relating to Kamma… We practice endurance, renunciation, equanimity, determination: all of which are qualities of the will, in which we make up our minds that there’s something we really want and we try to get all our random desires in line. The Thai image is of trying to catch crabs and put them in a basket. You get one crab in the basket and by the …
- Moods Are Not-Self… Then look at the way you talk to yourself around goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity; the way you talk to yourself about your body; the way you talk to yourself about things around you outside. Try to get yourself in the right frame of mind to settle down. Those are some of the ways you can talk to yourself. Then you can ask …
- Evaluation… When it begins to get dry, you can think thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, or equanimity. When you get discouraged, you can think about members of the Sangha in the past who seemed to have reached a dead end in their meditation but then were able to break through. Reflect on the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Reflect on death when you …
- A Generosity of Spirit… The mind becomes more expansive, and that becomes the mind that’s in line with unlimited goodwill, unlimited compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. So this is one of the reasons why here at the monastery we don’t have a staff. Everybody helps. Everybody pitches in. It’s our way of being generous. Everything from gifts of food, to gifts of time, gifts of …
- Licking Yourself Clean… One of the reasons we recite those chants on goodwill, compassion, appreciation, and equanimity is to create a sense of wellbeing in the mind. Thoughts of goodwill are good thoughts to think. They feel good. They put the mind at ease. You don’t have to struggle with anybody. You don’t have to settle any old scores. It feels good to be thinking …
- Two Kinds of Defilements… There are the ones that go away if you simply look at them with equanimity. And there are others that won’t go away unless you, as he says, exert a fabrication against them. In other words, you have to put in effort to figure them out and really actively uproot them. Another reason why there are two causes of suffering is because there …
- The Gift of the Practice… You develop the equanimity that’s needed to deal with whatever situation comes up. That’s obviously a benefit to the people around you. As the old poem says, when people around you are losing their heads but you’re able to keep yours, that’s a real gift to them. You become more and more reliable. And then ultimately when you’ve seen …
- To Be Worthy of the Dhamma… Then from the pleasure, equanimity. But also you calm the perceptions, perceptions about the breath and that induce these different feelings. You can calm things even further. The perception of space is more calming than any of the perceptions having to do with the four elements. When you get so that the breath does stop, then you begin to notice that the movement of …
- Duties… mindfulness, analysis of qualities, persistence, rapture, calm, concentration, equanimity. In other words, it’s the practice where you start with being mindful, and then you use your discernment to bring the mind first a sense of energy inside—that can be your food inside, your medicine inside—and then to calm it down. That’s also a kind of medicine, also a kind of …
- Faith as a Virtue… Let your actions be motivated by universal goodwill, universal compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Then if there is rebirth, you’ve acted in a way that will lead to good results—assuming that your rebirth is shaped by your karma. If it turns out that there is no rebirth or there is rebirth but it’s not shaped by your karma, then at the …
- Evaluating the Practice… How is it skillful and how is it not? When it’s going well, how can you keep it going well and not get complacent? When it’s going poorly, how can you watch it with enough patience and equanimity until you understand it without getting depressed? When you can do that, then the teacher’s heart can be at rest. And your heart …
- The Brightness of Life… patience, endurance, goodwill, equanimity. These are all things that we’re free to develop. So the path is wide open. It’s simply that a lot of people resist: They want to look for light in other things. They’re perfectly happy where they are—and they don’t want to be told that they’re living in darkness. It’s like people living …
- Circumspection… serenity, concentration, equanimity. You’ve got to figure out which ones you need right now. So how do you figure that out? You watch. You try things out and see what works and what doesn’t work, until you begin to get a sense of how to read the mind. This principle applies all across the board throughout the practice, to every one of …
- Virtues & Values… At the same time, in helping others you have to develop qualities like patience, equanimity, kindness, and goodwill. That’s how we live together. That’s how we help one another. And in doing so, we develop these good qualities inside, qualities that will be to our benefit. So even though, as we’re meditating, each person is focused on his or her own …
- Useful Vocabulary… So one of the purposes of getting the mind into concentration is not just to have equanimity for everything. It’s to give rise to the mindfulness and alertness. As the Buddha said, that’s one of the uses of concentration: so you can see precisely when things are arising in the mind and notice the mind’s reaction. The more precise your vocabulary …
- Feeding on the Breath… This is why the Buddha recommended as a first step in practicing meditation that you try to develop as much equanimity and patience as you can. As he taught Rahula, try to make your mind like earth. People throw disgusting things on the earth, but the earth doesn’t react. Make your mind like water. Water can wash away all kinds of disgusting things …
- Correcting, Fostering, Cutting Away… But you also have to have equanimity. You hope that, if they’re behaving in bad ways, they’ll see the error of their ways. But you realize you can’t make your happiness depend on their changing their ways. And if you carry their issues into your meditation, you’re destroying your own chances to take advantage of this time. So, we develop …
- Fear of Mistakes… Then you develop thoughts of goodwill, thoughts of compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—for yourself and for all other beings. For yourself, so that you don’t beat yourself up; for other beings, to remind yourself that in all your dealings, you want to be as harmless as possible. This goes back to the principle that simply because you’ve made a mistake doesn …
- Enjoying the Path… The factors of right concentration include ease, pleasure, rapture, equanimity—good qualities to have in the mind. It’s meant to be enjoyable. There are some places where the Buddha talks about painful practice, but it’s not always painful. There’s the element of pleasure as well. This is what makes the path, even though it may be a long path, seem a …
- Nourishment from the Breath… One of the monks speaks up and says, “Yes, I already do that.” The Buddha asks him, “Well, how do you do that?” The monk replies, “I put aside my interest in the past and my desires for the future, and I just try to be equanimous about the present as I breathe in and breathe out.” The Buddha responds, “Well there is that …
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