Search results for: "Equanimity"

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  2. How to Really Depend on Yourself
     … Then develop some equanimity around the issues of the day so that you can settle down with the breath. Or you can contemplate the inconstancy of the distractions that would pull you away from the breath. You can contemplate the fact that they’re not under your control, they’re not really yours. You don’t have to identify with them. Sometimes it’s … 
  3. The Mind’s Ostinato
     … As he saw it, it was just a moment of great equanimity. But passing away, what happened there, he had no idea. It didn’t make any sense. The idea that the Buddha would have passed away into something unconditioned made no sense to him, because he said, “After all, human beings are conditioned realities. We’re biological creatures.” So I had a conversation … 
  4. Patience & Curiosity
     … So the Buddha taught Rahula patience, endurance, equanimity, as a basic prerequisite for then working with the breath. Working with the breath wasn’t just a matter of accepting what’s already there. Some of the steps of breath meditation require that you sit and watch, and others require that you actively interfere, that you play around with the breath, do things with the … 
  5. You Can’t Eat the Buddha
     … That’s where you have to develop equanimity. You don’t grasp onto them saying, “Please stay here and suffer so I can feel good about being compassionate.” That’s just another way of saying, “Even though it hurts you to stay, please be here for me when I need you.” The Buddha’s final nibbana was the opposite of that, and it was … 
  6. Determination
     … You’ve got to be able to keep your mind calm, equanimous, and patient in the midst of the difficulties of the path—and in particular in the midst of the difficulties of sticking to the path in a world that’s not behaving in line with the path. We’re trying to develop these perfections in an imperfect world. You look around and … 
  7. Defilements
     … This is where it’s good to have some practice with the phrases for goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, because if you then suddenly find yourself talking to yourself about somebody else in an envious or a spiteful way, you’ll notice that it doesn’t really go together with “May all beings be happy. May all beings not be deprived of the … 
  8. You Can Do Better
     … Then you resolve on what the Buddha says is non-ill will, which can mean everything from goodwill to equanimity. Then you resolve on harmlessness, which is basically resolving on compassion. So, there you’ve got all the brahmaviharas. Basically, with right resolve, you’re setting yourself up for right concentration. You realize that if you really want to put an end to the … 
  9. Inconstancy
     … There’s a passage where he’s teaching his son meditation, and even before he teaches him breath meditation or anything else, he teaches him, “Make your mind like earth, develop thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity.” Then he teaches a couple of contemplations that are connected with insight: contemplation of the body, to overcome any sense of sensual desire for the body … 
  10. Magha Puja
     … We often hear that the Buddha taught acceptance and equanimity. Learning how to accept whatever comes up is part of endurance, but that’s not the goal. It’s simply one of the steps in the path. You admit what’s happening. You’re clear about what’s happening. But you also want to see where there’s a lack, where there still is … 
  11. The Anatomy of the Present
     … The large river represents a mind that is developing thoughts of unlimited good will, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. It’s developed in virtue and developed in discernment. And it’s trained so as to not be overcome easily by either pleasure or pain. When your mind has these qualities, it’s like the large river, so that whatever past karma you’ve done … 
  12. Expanded Possibilities
     … I’ve told you the story of a Buddhist scholar who was complaining that he could understand the sense of peace that the Buddha achieved on the night of his awakening—he saw it as a kind of an equanimity—but he didn’t understand the idea that on the night of the Buddha’s passing away he’d obtained something unconditioned, because, as … 
  13. Samvega Transformed
     … Ajaan Suwat said when he was young, first studying with Ajaan Funn, sometimes the thought would come to him, “What will I do if anything happens to Ajaan Funn? I’d be totally lost.” But by the time Ajaan Funn did pass away, Ajaan Suwat was much more solid in his practice, and he was able to experience Ajaan Funn’s death with equanimity … 
  14. Cornered
     … for a well-being that comes with a sense of ease, a well-being that comes with equanimity, a well-being that comes from getting into formless perceptions—space, consciousness, nothingness. The food gets progressively more and more refined, until you see that this is the best you can do with the aggregates. You look around, and there’s nothing better. So you get … 
  15. Vows
     … When you realize you’ve got to do some things that are hard and give up some things that you like, how do you keep your mind calm in the face of all that? How do you develop the equanimity you need to realize, “Well, this is what needs to be done, so I want to do it” regardless of whether it’s easy … 
  16. Brahmaviharas & the Breath
     … goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—as preparation for settling down with the breath. But he would also comment occasionally on how, when you’re developing thoughts, especially of goodwill, if there’s no sense of well-being inside, it’s like turning on the faucet to a water tank that has no water in it at all. Nothing but air comes out. And … 
  17. Goodness
     … We start our meditation every day with the chants on goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, to remind us of our motivation for practicing. We want a happiness that’s special, something that’s lasting, something that’s blameless, and at the same time can be a gift to others. Because you notice when the Buddha talks about goodwill, it’s always unlimited, immeasurable … 
  18. Mindfulness over Time
     … calm, concentration, equanimity. But mindfulness is what remembers what the possible problems are, the possible solutions, and then it, together with alertness, checks to make sure that you’re actually getting the results you want. So take careful notice of what messages you’re sending to yourself. This is one of the ways in which we use perception skillfully on the path.
  19. A World of Limitations
     … It requires other qualities as well, the qualities we tend to associate more with the heart, in terms of goodwill, compassion, and equanimity. It’s a long list. If you were to take down the list of all the qualities the Buddha recommended, it’d be very long. So we have to work on many fronts. Other qualities are more associated with the will … 
  20. High Level Metta
     … And then you have to be equanimous about whether or not other people are going to follow that example. So, metta is a determination that you have to assemble with all these different forms of fabrication. You look at your perceptions with regard to other beings. You work on your understanding so that when you’re talking to yourself about what would be the … 
  21. Taking Apart Suffering
     … Learn to identify both in the body and in the mind the parts that are potential for a sense of ease, a potential for equanimity, wisdom, this patient observer, and then take apart the unskillful things. In other words, you master this ability that you have to put things together which we’re so good at—in the sense that we do it all … 
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