Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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.
- 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 …
- 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 …
- 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 …
- Change… That’s equanimity. Mindfulness is when you keep in mind the fact that there are skillful qualities and unskillful qualities. And that if something unskillful comes up, you’ve got to get rid of it. If something skillful arises, you’ve got to encourage it. And if it hasn’t arisen, you’ve got to give rise to it. And you remember how to …
- The Buddha Didn’t Play Gotcha… But right concentration, being focused in this present moment with full body awareness, a sense of ease and rapture that then shades into equanimity: That’s a valuable skill. There are greater dangers in the path, such as the danger of getting teachers who say, “Well, you can’t gain concentration or you shouldn’t try.” That’s pretty dangerous. Or other teachers who …
- A Refuge from Karma… goodwill for everybody, compassion for everybody, empathetic joy for everybody, equanimity for everybody when it’s needed. That enlarges your mind, and the enlarged mind suffers a lot less than the narrow, constricted mind that’s constantly worried about this, worried about that, overcome by pain. You train the mind in virtue, you train it in discernment, so that it doesn’t have to …
- Noble Right Concentration… You settle down with a sense of equanimity. That’s the standard definition or description of the four levels of jhana. But when the Buddha talks about noble right concentration, he adds another factor. He calls it having your theme well in hand. He illustrates it with an analogy: a person sitting and watching someone else lying down, or a person standing and watching …
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