Search results for: "Equanimity"

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  2. The Graduated Discourse
     … It can either be the kind of karma that leads to a nice rebirth or pleasant conditions, that trains the mind how to be equanimous, how to be balanced in the face of difficulties, and to live life in a way that minimizes suffering. Or it can be aimed at going beyond suffering altogether. It’s the same practice, but done with a different … 
  3. Precarious Knowledge
     … What is this knowledge doing for the mind? How does its effect it? Does it increase your mindfulness? Does it increase your concentration, your discernment? Does it increase your compassion, your equanimity? If it does, make use of the knowledge to do those things to the mind, because you don’t know how long it’s going to be good. You don’t know … 
  4. Verified Confidence
     … goodwill for all beings, compassion for all beings, empathetic joy for all, equanimity for all. Don’t do it as an idle pastime. Make it part of your genuine motivation: that these attitudes will govern your actions. When you act on these principles, the Buddha said, again, even if there were no rebirth and your karma didn’t have any consequences beyond this lifetime … 
  5. Proactive with Pain
     … This is why we try to develop thoughts of equanimity, realizing that no matter how much we love other people, their kamma is beyond us. No matter how much we might dislike what other people may be doing, their kamma is beyond us. But you also have to realize that you are beyond their kamma as well. There’s a place deep down in … 
  6. Self-Healing
     … Which is why we also balance those expressions of goodwill with expressions of equanimity: “All beings are the owners of their actions.” You have to accept the fact that if you have freedom of choice, well, they have freedom of choice, too. So the things you cannot influence, you have to let go. Focus on the things that you can, and do your best … 
  7. A Mind Like Earth
     … So when the Buddha talks about patience and equanimity, understand what he means. You’re not a clod of earth, but you’re solid like earth. Once you make that distinction, it clears up a lot of issues. And once you follow it through, it clears up even more.
  8. Evaluating Your Practice
     … Patience, of course, requires equanimity, the ability to step back from things and watch them, not to identify closely with things that are causing you to suffer. That requires the mindfulness to remember that you have the choice: If a feeling comes up in the mind and it seems really heavy, really painful, you do have the choice not to identify with it. You … 
  9. Compunction
     … Patience and equanimity: These things are all good for you. These become your perfections. They become your treasures. They become your protection. These are the good qualities you build in the mind. They don’t go anywhere else. They stay with the mind. And that’s the paradox, that the goodness you leave behind in the world is the goodness that goes with you … 
  10. The River of Karma
     … One is developing unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity – in other words, working on the brahma-viharas. They help to create an unlimited state of mind. The analogy the Buddha gives is of a big lump of salt. If you took that lump of salt and put it into a cup of water, you couldn’t drink the water because there was so … 
  11. At Home with the Breath
     … It’s a lot easier to develop the attitudes we know we should develop toward others—i.e., goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, equanimity when that’s called for—when you’re coming from a sense of well-being. As you’re working on concentration, don’t be in too great a hurry to move on to the next stage. Learn to occupy this place … 
  12. When Things Regress
     … Whatever comes up, I’m equanimous in the present as I breathe in and breathe out.” The Buddha said, “Well, there is that kind of breath meditation, but it’s not the kind that’s going to give you good results.” Then he went into the sixteen steps. And remember that one of those steps involves trying to be aware of the whole body … 
  13. Abandoning Effluents (2)
     … Either it has to do with the tendency that some people have when they say, “Well, I’m going to practice total equanimity. No matter what happens, I’ll just put up with it.” There are some things you don’t have to put up with. If you tell yourself, “I’ll just walk through the cesspool if I have to. I’ll walk … 
  14. Dhamma in Vinaya
     … When you get to the higher levels of concentration, they’re based on equanimity. So it’s good to borrow some teachings from the Vinaya every now and then, and to apply them to practice, even if you’re not a monk. Think of how they apply to your daily life, but also of how they apply to your meditation. It’s when you … 
  15. Safety in an Uncertain World
     … As the Buddha describes concentration, it’s basically feeling tones of pleasure, rapture, and the calm of equanimity after the mind has been nourished with pleasure and rapture. We’re feeding the mind so that it’s not so hungry for quick fixes. That way, it can learn to trust itself more. But even then we’re still subject to further dangers: the simple … 
  16. Truth as Medicine
     … There are times when compassion is called for, there are other times when equanimity is called for. Everyone likes the compassionate response but there are other times when you have to step back and learn some pretty harsh truths. So as you practice, think of yourself as a student doctor. You’re trying to see the medicinal value of everything around you. When you … 
  17. Determined on Goodwill
     … As for training for calm, remember that the practice of goodwill is coupled with the practice for equanimity. We want people to behave in skillful ways, but they have the choice—just like you have the choice—to behave in skillful ways or unskillful ways. You can’t force them to be skillful, so you have to be prepared for the fact that people … 
  18. Pleasures & Pains on the Middle Way
     … And it’s easy to think about it as being someplace in the middle between pleasure and pain—an equanimous, neutral feeling—but that’s not the case. The Buddha talks about it as an alternative pleasure. As he says, if there’s no alternative pleasure to sensual pleasure, then the mind’s going to go there. No matter how much it may understand … 
  19. An Anthropologist from Mars
     … So try to face the ways of the world with equanimity and not let yourself get sucked into the narratives or systems of values that people use to tie you in, to keep you going along with their view of the world. After all, they want to make sure that everyone around them shares the same values so that they can feel comfortable, so … 
  20. The Heart of the Teachings
     … One time, when the Buddha said that the monks should practice breath meditation, one monk said, “I already practice breath meditation.” And the Buddha asked him, “Well, how do you do that?” And the monk replied, “I put aside all desires for the past, put aside all desires for the future, and learn to be equanimous in the present moment, breathing in and breathing … 
  21. Patterns to Happiness
     … You can develop attitudes of limitless goodwill, limitless compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, so that when the results of that action come, the results get minimized. Or as in the case of Angulimala: He became an arahant even though he had killed all those people. The karma he got was pretty minimal: He just got his head broken a couple times, which is very … 
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