Equanimity

The next set of three points concern developing uncommon Mahayana equanimity from the relative point of view of others.  Everyone Equally Wants to Be Happy and Not to Be Unhappy  The first of these is that everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy or suffer;...

Review In our last session we presented the first stages in the process for working ourselves up to developing bodhichitta. We saw that the first type of equanimity that we cultivate is the equanimity that tries to rid ourselves, at least provisionally, of gross disturbing...

The Eight Worldly Concerns Apart from the experiences and feelings within our minds, there is also the content of our life. It’s the same thing here; we should try not to make a big deal out of it all. The Buddhist teachings emphasize a list of eight transitory things in life...

Review This morning, we discussed the ground floor level of, or basis for, the seven-part cause and effect meditation for generating a bodhichitta aim. We saw that this is equanimity, the type of equanimity with which we are free of attachment or attraction to some, aversion...

Review We have been going through the various stages for developing equanimity, equanimity specifically toward ourselves. This is a type of equanimity with which we have an even attitude toward ourselves: free from aversion (a negative attitude); free from attraction...

Verses 10 through 17 Brief Review After beginning with the homage and the promise to compose, Togme Zangpo goes through the graded stages of motivation, the lam-rim, starting with the precious human life and the circumstances that are most conducive to taking advantage of...

We are going through the stages of meditation, leading up to the development of bodhichitta. We have gone through the process for developing mere equanimity, and we’re working through the nine stages for developing the uncommon Mahayana type of equanimity. The first type of...

Review In our discussion about how to equalize our attitudes about ourselves, we have covered the various exercises to help us to develop equanimity – equanimity specifically aimed at ourselves in terms of what we’ve done in life, in terms of how we regard ourselves and treat...

Review In our discussion of the Seven Point Mind Training, we’ve discussed the first of these points, the training in the preliminaries, which prepare us to follow the Mahayana training, and the second point, the actual training in bodhichitta. We’ve discussed the training in...

Questions about the Clear Light Mind If the clear light mind is not influenced by causes and circumstances and it's not independently existing, then by what is it influenced? When we speak of clear light mind as being an unaffected or unconditioned phenomenon, we need to...