Tag: peace

Equanimity

Today let’s talk about equanimity. There are two types of equanimity. One that is your attitude towards the situation and the other your attitude towards the phenomenon. Let’s take the second one first. In this context, equanimity means compassion without attachment. It sounds very simple but it is a profound topic. If we think about it, we normally have three different attitudes toward all beings. Attachment, hatred, or indifference. We exhibit compassion towards those who we are attached to. We have no compassion for those we hate. And we don’t care one way or another about someone we are indifferent about. For example, as we sit here there are genocide’s going on in parts of the world. We read about them in the news and have little or no compassion towards their situation. If on the other hand, someone we are attached to is going through difficulty, we show great compassion. That is great. However, oftentimes our compassion is conditional because of attachment. It may be we want them to do things a certain way or we want them to thank us or what have you. An equanimous mind is a mind that is compassionate towards all beings without attachment. So we have some compassion towards someone who is a family member as someone who we know nothing about. Currently, if two people are in trouble, we tend to help one who we are attached to but not the other. This discrimination is what we need to stop in trying to be equanimous. Developing universal compassion is not easy and can take a lifetime but we need to start somewhere. The best place to start is to try and start with removing attachment from who we are already compassionate. Give them out unconditional love. These are the people we are already attached to. After that, we begin showing compassion towards everyone we meet and expand from there. The second definition of equanimity is a mind that is steady regardless of the situation. This is a balanced mind. No matter the situation, we keep our cool. That means if a situation is tense and people are talking negativity, we don’t get angry and react accordingly. We assess the situation without emotionally getting involved and respond to the problem at hand. This also means is the situation is all positive we don’t get excited and let our egos go rampant. Even in such a situation, we remain even kill. Equanimity is protection from what is called the Eight Worldly Winds: praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute. Becoming attached to or excessively elated with success, praise, fame, or pleasure can be a setup for suffering when the winds of change shift. According to the Buddha, the way to bring about equanimity is wise attention: to be continually mindful from moment to moment, without a break, based on the intention to develop equanimity. One moment of equanimity causes a succeeding moment of equanimity to arise. Once equanimity is activated, it will be the cause for equanimity to continue and to deepen. It can bring one to deep levels of practice beyond the insight into the arising and passing away of phenomena. Ways to develop equanimity include 1) balanced mental state towards all living beings; and 2) balanced mental state towards nonliving things. Equanimity allows for the mystery of things: the unknowable, uncontrollable nature of things to be just as they are. In this acceptance lies peace and freedom—right there in the midst of whatever pleasant or unpleasant circumstances we find ourselves in. When we realize that it is actually very little we can control other than our own reactions to circumstances, we learn to let go.

Positive Karma

Let’s talk about virtuous or positive actions. There are three parts to this discussion. 1) ten virtuous actions; 2) factors in the beneficial powers; 3) the effects of virtual actions. Virtuous actions are paths that lead to happiness. Similar to ten negative actions, there are ten positive actions. They are essentially opposite to ten negative actions. Each of the ten positive actions is restraint from their respective negative action. They are abandoning killing, abandoning stealing, abandoning sexual misconduct, abandoning lying, abandoning divisive speech, abandoning hurtful speech, abandoning idle chatter, abandoning covetousness, abandoning malice, and abandoning holding wrong views. Each of the ten principal virtuous actions is restraint from one of the ten non-virtuous actions. To refrain deliberately from non-virtuous actions, having understood their danger is what is important for it to be a virtuous action. For example, when a baby does not steal does not mean that baby is practicing virtuous action because the baby does not understand the dangers of the effects of stealing. Let’s take killing as an example. Some people are able to take all living beings as their object and try to abandon the killing of all living beings. This means insects on up. Some people say a fisherman whose job it is to catch fish may not want to do that initially. But they can take all objects except a fish and abandon the killing of those objects. They can then slowly introduce not killing a fish on weekends, at nights and so forth slowly increasing these periods of time. Once we have made this decision as long as we remain mindful, our virtuous actions are being fulfilled. Just like non-virtuous actions, the more we perform a virtuous action, the more powerful it becomes. All positive Karma also has three kinds of effects. The ripened effect, the effect similar to the cause, and the environmental effect. The ripened effect is taking birth in a higher realm such as human birth. Effects tendencies similar to virtuous actions allow us the opportunity to perform the same kind of virtuous actions over and over. As long as we don’t resist these tendencies, we will have an opportunity to add on to our balance of virtuous actions. Experience similar to cause affords better living conditions. For example, an experience similar to abandoning killing is that we enjoy a long life; the experience similar to abandoning stealing is that we effortlessly accumulate wealth. Have you ever noticed some people tend to have a Midas touch and make money effortlessly in anything they try? That is an experience similar to the previous virtuous action of abandoning stealing. Experience similar to the action of abandoning sexual misconduct is that we have stable friendships and happier family life. The environmental effects of virtuous actions are opposite to the environmental effects of non-virtuous actions. It is important to point out that an environmental effect is not a quality of external conditions but the quality of the mind that experiences that. What do I mean by that? The same external conditions can be experienced as different environmental effects by different minds. For example, in a place where most people find the food good and nourishing, some people experience nausea and indigestion. Two people can take the same medicine and one of them can get an adverse side effect. So it is the individual Karma of each one of us that determines the environmental effect. The object of virtuous action also affects the power of our actions. For example, if we give a pair of clothes to a hungry person, it counts. But, if we give them food, it is much more powerful. The motivation behind any action is also important. For example, we give something that we don’t have any need for counts. But if we give something with a wish to benefit someone is much more powerful. As you can see there is a lot to unpack here. Karma is a deep and profound subject. Hopefully, over the last five sessions, we have scratched the surface and all of us are beginning to think about the long term effects of our day to day actions.