Search results for: "Equanimity"

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  2. Relationships
     … And that’s when you have to develop equanimity, so that you can focus your energies in areas where you really can make a difference. So equanimity is not a matter of indifference or cold-heartedness. It’s more a matter of having priorities and getting those priorities to be realistic—appropriate for the situation. And the ability to see what’s appropriate is … 
  3. Negativity
     … That leads to the second way to strengthen your mind, which is to develop thoughts of limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—in other words, the brahmavihāras. Once you’ve recognized a mistake, have some goodwill for yourself. Remind yourself that you are aiming at happiness, and that any voices inside you that are not aiming at happiness are not Dhamma at all … 
  4. Your Ancestral Territory
    We begin each meditation session with chants about the Buddha, the Dhamma, the Sangha, developing thoughts of goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, partly so that you can develop the right environment, the right mental environment, for the practice as you’re sitting here right now, but also so that you can associate these ideas with your breath. That way—when, in the course … 
  5. What You Can’t Change, What You Can
     … This is why the Buddha taught the brahmaviharas or the sublime attitudes as a set—qualities of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—with the realization that some of them will be appropriate at some times and others appropriate at others. There’s no one attitude you take all the way all the time. Wisdom comes in knowing which attitude to apply in … 
  6. Goodwill All Around
     … That’s why you’ve got to develop equanimity. Without equanimity goodwill can be a cause for suffering in and of itself. So that’s when you have to reflect: all beings are the owners of their actions. Some people have karma that’s going to force them to suffer for awhile, or at least have bad circumstances. The issue of how they respond … 
  7. Contentment
     … But as Ajaan Chah once noted, that’s the equanimity of a water buffalo. Water buffaloes are not smart. They’re not wise. There are things that you learn how to accept to be content with, but there are a lot of things the Buddha said you cannot be content with, because there’s suffering in the mind. No matter how many conceptual edifices … 
  8. Shoot Your Pains with Wisdom
     … He wants you to shoot yourself with the pleasure and bliss of concentration, with the directed thought and evaluation; to shoot yourself with discernment so that you can really understand how even a state of equanimity is fashioned. He wants you to see what you’re shooting yourself with as you hang out in a state of equanimity, so that you ultimately can see … 
  9. Train Your Hunger (The Sea Squirt)
     … And when you can apply this analysis in an all-around way, eventually even to your concentration, you’re not escaping just to equanimity. You really escape from all the ways you’ve fed, even on equanimity. The mind opens to another dimension where there’s no hunger, where there’s happiness, a sense of well-being that doesn’t require that you feed … 
  10. Antidotes for Narcissism
     … It helps give rise to a sense of compassion, a sense of equanimity: compassion for other people’s feelings, equanimity toward your own. With mind states, it’s helpful to look at other people, say, if you’re in the midst of really feeling angry. Keep in mind that other people are angry too. What are they like when they’re angry? What stupid … 
  11. Healing Breath
     … As the mind develops a sense of concentration, being solidly established right here, there also comes a sense of equanimity, the seventh factor for awakening. Again, there’s a lack of disturbance. After the mind’s been refreshed by the sense of pleasure and ease that come from serenity, it doesn’t even have to focus on them any moment. There’s a sense … 
  12. The Source of Goodness
     … I heard a group of people discussing how they felt about the idea of goodwill or the idea of equanimity, and for them the idea in the abstract was intimidating. How can you have goodwill for everybody? How can you have equanimity in the midst of all situations? Is it something really worth having? The Buddha’s solution to that problem is not to … 
  13. Feeding on Open Wounds
     … The Buddha also recommends, in the same passage, that you develop goodwill for all, compassion for all, empathetic joy for all, equanimity toward all. You need all of those immeasurable attitudes, because as you’re looking and listening, you’re going to see people doing all kinds of things. They’re harming themselves, harming one another. Think of the Buddha’s image of the … 
  14. W.W.B.R.
     … Basically, what he’s saying here is to develop some patience, develop some equanimity. The mind is thinking? Okay, it’s thinking. This is where you are. This is acceptance without resignation. In other words, you accept this situation as it is, but you don’t resign yourself to it. Because the Buddha doesn’t stop with just being equanimous. He gives you alternative … 
  15. Goodness Comes from Heedfulness
     … goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. You realize that if you do anything unskillful, if you harm anybody, it’s going to cause trouble down the line. You want to develop the attitudes that will help protect you from being careless in your actions, heedless of other people’s needs, heedless of their well-being, and heedless … 
  16. Everybody Benefits
     … This means being very honest with yourself as to what’s actually going on and trying to be as alert as possible—and developing equanimity so that you can really see what’s actually happening. In Thai when they’re talking about the knower or awareness itself, they’re basically talking about this quality of equanimity: the part of the mind that simply receives … 
  17. Adjusting the Flame
     … In other words, you try to develop as much calm, concentration, and equanimity as you can—equanimity toward things outside, equanimity toward the situation right now in your body. This is what you’ve got to work with. How can you best settle down? That’s what the calm and concentration are for. What can you do to get things to settle down? You … 
  18. Like a River Full of Water
     … As for areas where you can’t be of help, that’s where you develop equanimity. This applies to yourself, to other people, or to situations that you don’t want to see happen but it’s just the way things are. You can’t make a difference in some cases, so you want to be able to develop equanimity in every situation where … 
  19. Lessons in Happiness
     … things that can be known by simply watching with total equanimity, so that he ultimately relinquished even the equanimity. That’s mature letting go. It comes from developing your sensitivity, learning the lessons of happiness, learning the lessons of pleasure that the breath has to offer. You look in the texts and you see that breath meditation and the development of the goodwill, the … 
  20. Beginning the Rains
     … This is the true role of equanimity in the practice—not that you’re equanimous about whether you’re going to fail or succeed. You’re very much determined that you do want to succeed in this determination. But when there are setbacks, you don’t let them wound you. You don’t get worked up about them. You find some way around them … 
  21. Potentials Past & Present
     … As for the things that can’t be changed, that’s where you have to develop equanimity. The Buddha taught four attitudes called brahmaviharas—the sublime attitudes. There’s goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Goodwill is a wish for happiness. Compassion is connected to goodwill, in the sense that if you see somebody suffering or creating the causes for suffering, your attitude is … 
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