Search results for: "Equanimity"
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- Intelligence of the Heart… But this is why goodwill has to be backed up by equanimity, because you realize that a lot of people are not going to do that. Yet if you can engage with people on the assumption that your engagement could push them in that direction or inspire them in that direction, then your engagement with other people is really useful. It’s something you …
- Twigs & Branches… All about equanimity.” That’s not the case. If it’s all about anything, it’s all about nibbana. As for everything else, you use distinctions between what helps you get to nibbana and what gets in the way. So you have to fabricate the thinking. Fabricate those value judgments that will help you make distinctions and decide: “Is this heading in the right …
- The Breath All the Way… The Buddha was once advising the monks to practice breath meditation, and one of the monks said, “I already practice breath meditation.” So the Buddha asked him, “What kind of breath meditation do you practice?” The monk replied, “I put aside thoughts of the past, don’t hanker after thoughts of the future, and try to keep the mind at equanimity in the present …
- Analysis of Qualities… It’s a lot easier to come into the present moment with a sense of equanimity, with a sense of solidity, confidence that this is something you can do, and it’s something important to do. The chant we had just now on aging, illness, death, and action, is only part of the Buddha’s recommendation for how to reflect on those things. He …
- Trading Up… As you let go of these things as they seem gross, the mind reaches a state of perfect balance and equanimity, an extreme but very subtle sense of well-being. And it’s from that sense of well-being that you can look at the ways in which the mind creates its suffering for itself and you can begin to pry them away. So …
- Limitations… generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truth, determination, goodwill, and equanimity. That’s the traditional list of good qualities that you can develop as you go through life in the world. You aim at developing those qualities as much as you can. As for the effect you leave behind in the world, you do your best, realizing that there will be limitations. But the …
- Why Train the Mind… We want to develop the equanimity and the equilibrium that allows us to accept the fact that both of those kinds of qualities are there in the mind. Because it’s only when you see them and admit them that you can do something about them. You begin to figure out: Why is it that, even when things are going well, the mind can …
- The Power of Truth… Then he would say first you develop this concentration with directed thought and evaluation—that’s a jhana practice—then without directed thought and evaluation, with enjoyment, with equanimity. In other words, you take it through all the four jhanas. One of the basic themes of concentration practice is just this: establishing mindfulness. There are lots of passages you can cite, showing that the …
- Things Aren’t as They Should Be… So, in that sense, the idea that things are as they should be helps you to develop an attitude of equanimity: This is what you’ve got to work with. But you don’t stop there, and this is where the idea that things are as they should be is actually very harmful. On the one hand, it seems to imply, “Well, it’s …
- Endurance & Restraint… It’s interesting that the Buddha talks about equanimity and patience as being two of the main qualities we have to develop in dealing with others. He wasn’t some starry-eyed Pollyanna thinking that we’re all going to love one another. He recognized that living with other people is difficult, and one of the main problems is how you talk to yourself …
- A Larger Perspective… This is why we spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings, compassion, empathetic joy toward all beings, equanimity toward all beings, to open up the mind a little bit—to get that concept of “all beings” in there. This is also why the reflection on birth, aging, illness, death, separation, and the principle of karma comes in two forms. In the first, you reflect …
- Invest in the Breath… What are you going to depend on as your body begins to erode away, as your mental capabilities begin to erode away? If you’ve been developing qualities like mindfulness and alertness, concentration and discernment, you can deal with these problems with a lot more skill, equanimity, and patience, or at least do your best to work around them. When the Buddha talks about …
- Respect, Confidence, & Patience… this is a question of trial and error, testing to see which recommendation is appropriate for which particular problem. And as I said at the being, trial and error require patience. Equanimity. The willingness to learn. The ability to step back a bit from whatever is going on, when it’s not going well, and taking a good, long look at it. And try …
- Tranquility & Insight in Tandem… You learn patience, and you learn equanimity, but there’s a lot more than needs to be learned. As the Buddha said, there are some causes of stress that go away when you simply look at them, but not all of them. In fact, most of them require that you look at how you’re thinking, look at how you’re fabricating around them …
- Skills to Make You Free… limitless goodwill for all beings, limitless compassion for those who are suffering, limitless empathetic joy for those who are happy, and limitless equanimity in cases where you can’t make any difference. These attitudes enlarge the mind. The next two skills are that you train yourself in virtue and train yourself in discernment: your ability to see what’s going on in the mind …
- Pleasure on the Path… This means that, as you’re watching the breath and there are pains in the body, you learn to treat them with some equanimity, accepting the fact that there will be pains in different parts of the body. Ajaan Lee’s image is of a tree that has some old leaves and new leaves. The new leaves nourish the tree. The old leaves are …
- Off the Continuum… pleasure and rapture born of seclusion, pleasure and rapture born of concentration, and the pleasure of the mind coming into equanimity. In other words, it’s a pleasure that has nothing to do with sensual pleasures. It’s off the continuum. And it’s a pleasure to be developed. The most important part of the first sermon is in a section that’s often …
- Friends with the Breath… And then develop thoughts of equanimity, realizing that ultimately each of us has his or her own kamma, his or her own actions, that we’re each responsible for our happiness and for our suffering. What this means is that you’ve got to work on your own kamma—which is what we’re doing as we’re meditating: working on skillful kamma, the …
- The Skill of Letting Go… one in which you develop dispassion for it simply by watching it with equanimity, and the other where you have to exert a fabrication before you develop dispassion. The first sort are the ones where you haven’t basically been paying attention to why you’re holding on to something. When you look at it directly, you see quickly that it’s not worth …
- The Truth of Transcendence… loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. [Pause.] There’s no laughter. [Laughter.] You think that’s what the Buddha awakened to? Those four wonderful truths? [More laughter.] I had to sit my niece down and explain things to her. More recently I read someone saying the Buddha awakened to four noble truths about life, and that was it. In other words, he didn …
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