Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Caught in a Thorn Bush… Putting it into the fire is an image for effort; blowing on it is an image for concentration; and looking at it is an image for equanimity. Working with the gold requires a balance of all three: If you simply left it in the fire, it would burn up. If you simply looked at it, nothing would happen. If you blew on it, nothing …
- Thinking Your Way to Stillness… He asks himself: “What are you going to do?” And his answer is, “I’m going to go back to my dwelling and I’m going to meditate.” “It’s cold outside, what are you going to do?” “I’m going to use the four immeasurable meditations—limitless goodwill, limitless compassion, limitless empathetic joy, limitless equanimity—to warm the heart.” These reflections remind you …
- The Riddle Tree… like recollecting the Buddha, recollecting the Dhamma, the Sangha, contemplating of the body, developing thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, or equanimity. It’s really a personal matter which of these is going to work for you. There’s no one-size-fits-all kind of meditation. Breath meditation comes the closest to a universal object because, after all, we all have a breath …
- Safe Haven… As for the parts the body you can’t get to go the way you like yet, okay, develop equanimity. As you develop these attitudes around your own breath, you gain practice. Then you can develop them in other areas of life as well. So as we meditate, we’re not simply running away from the world. We’re taking some time out to …
- Look after Yourself with Ease… You have to recognize them: “Okay, these things aren’t skillful; I can’t let the mind indulge in them at all.” As for thoughts that are imbued with renunciation, non-ill will—which can be anything from goodwill to equanimity—or imbued with harmlessness, they don’t really harm anybody. So you can let yourself think them when they’re useful. As long …
- Playing by the Buddha’s Rules… And what are the skillful qualities the Buddha recommends? Equanimity, patience, goodwill: all good things. It’s just that his explanation of them doesn’t quite fit with other people’s ideas of what goodwill or patience may be. But who are you going to trust? We’ve trusted society at large for who-knows-how-many lifetimes. It’s time to give the …
- Dispassion Isn’t Depression… It was equanimity, acceptance. At the end of it all, there’s nothing. Basically a sad end to a sad story—but that’s not what the Buddha taught. The Buddha was not defeatist. He called the noble eightfold path “unexcelled victory in battle.” It’s victory over our unskillful habits, a victory in the search for true happiness, a search that’s well …
- Encouragement… Just try to note, after you’ve come out of a good session, “Okay, what did I do just now? Why did that work?” When you come out of a bad session or you’re in the middle of a bad session, “Okay, why is it not working? What can be changed?” In other words, try to maintain as much equanimity throughout the whole …
- The Power of Present Karma… In some cases, he says, “There’s the potential for rapture,” or, “There’s the potential for equanimity,” or, “potential for stillness.” In some cases, you can figure out what these potentials are from other passages in the Canon. Like the potential for stillness: You try to bring the mind to the establishings of mindfulness. But in other cases, it’s up to you …
- Imagining Freedom… I’m not going to think about food outside the prison, and what life is like outside the prison.” There are some teachers who say that nibbana is simply learning how to be equanimous about the way things are. Well, that’s learning how to accept life in the prison. So it’s good every now and then to stretch your imagination. Maybe it …
- To Have a Purpose… Then finally, as you calm the mind, there’s the perfection of endurance and the perfection of equanimity. You’ve got all the perfections right there. So you’ve got the potential for what you need to put an end to suffering and to get to the other side of the river, because that’s one of the things that the word pāramī for …
- A Sense of Duty… you look out after others, you’re looking out after yourself. In other words, looking out after other people requires strengths that are good to have for your own sake, too: equanimity, kindness, goodwill, and a lot of endurance and patience. That’s because people are difficult. Each of us is a karma producer, free to make whatever choices we want to make, and …
- The Humble Way to Awakening… And sometimes the doing means simply treating it with equanimity, trying not to identify with it. Simply watching it as an event that comes and goes. That is a kind of action. You decide to take that approach and then watch what happens as a result. You may notice that there are changes in the pain. Sometimes it flares up and sometimes it dies …
- Sources of Lasting Happiness… Non-reactivity he termed equanimity. Being fully present he called alertness—which is a quality you are trying to develop, but the mindfulness is the part that keeps reminding you, in this case, to stay with the breath. As you’re staying with the breath, what are you going to do with it? You watch it for a while as it comes in, goes …
- Complaining Rights… If they’re not receptive, you’ve got to develop some equanimity. But you’re operating from knowledge, rather than from a quid pro quo, thinking, “I sympathize with you; you’ll sympathize with me.” Sympathy is not necessarily a bad thing, but our desire for it, our demand for it, can often get in the way of solving the problem of our suffering …
- Stay… But at the same time, you also want to be continually working on improving what you’ve got in terms of your powers of concentration, equanimity, stillness, serenity—all the factors of awakening— bringing them all into balance. So it’s not just a matter of dealing with everyday problems. You’re also dealing with deeper problems in the mind: Why is there suffering …
- Turning Points… In fact, he discovered as he pursued that path that it led to a state of concentration with total purity of mindfulness and equanimity. The mind was clear, malleable, and bright. This is how right concentration became the first factor of the path the Buddha discovered. The other seven factors clustered around that as he developed right concentration and then tried using it in …
- Investing in Noble Wealth… empathetic joy, equanimity around the breath, so that when you start extending these attitudes to other people, they really are embodied. They’re not just words. That’s wealth for the mind as well, that understanding. This is where discernment comes in. It comes in at the end of the list but you actually need it all the way along. Then there’s learning …
- Reading Your Meditation… At the same time, you try to develop attitudes of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Learn how to develop those attitudes for everybody. This is another inspiring theme that you might want to work on if you find you have trouble settling down in the present moment. Try to develop these attitudes so that you can call on them whenever you need …
- Right Effort… mindfulness as a factor for awakening; analysis of qualities, i.e., analyzing things into skillful and unskillful; persistence; rapture; serenity; concentration; and equanimity. These are qualities that, if they haven’t arisen yet, you want to give rise to them. When they have arisen, you want to develop them. Notice that the Buddha’s attitude here is not that you simply watch these things …
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