"Equanimity holds it all. Peace is not about moving away from or transcending all the pain in order to travel to an easeful, spacious realm of relief: we cradle both the immense sorrow and the wondrousness of life at the same time. Being able to be fully present with both is the gift equanimity gives... Continue Reading →
Generally speaking, we feel attachment to our family, to our belongings, and to our position, and aversion to anyone who hurts or threatens us. Try turning your attention away from such external objects and examine the mind that identifies them as desirable or hateful. Do your desire and anger have any form, color, substance, or... Continue Reading →
One day my teacher Ajahn Chah held up a beautiful Chinese tea cup, “To me this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.” When we understand the truth of uncertainty, we become free The broken cup helps us see... Continue Reading →
The beautiful thing about the dharma is that whatever arises is fine. The Buddha never said that some thoughts or feelings are bad and we should reject them. And there is no need to make a big deal about them or make them special either.I think the point is to be natural with our experience…and... Continue Reading →
Insights come only when there are gaps in our struggle, only when we stop trying to rid ourselves of thought, when we cease siding with pious, good thoughts against bad, impure thoughts, only when we allow ourselves simply to see the nature of thought. Chögyam Trungpa
“There is no one thing that can make us happy. When we expect stability from the world of things we make ourselves vulnerable to disappointment. When things change, a they inevitably do, we think the phenomenal world has turned on us, our bodies disappoint us , the pleasant feeling we got from our meditation session... Continue Reading →
When you practice compassion, don't "feel" the pain. When you feel the pain, you don't have any space left to practice compassion to anybody. Whenever you practice compassion keep very detached, with attachment...do you understand? This takes balance. "Compassion is something you hold, equanimity is how you detach." Without these two together, only holding, holding,... Continue Reading →
When we see the world in motion we realise that the workings are rather arbitrary in nature. There doesn't seem to be any 'logic' in it's running. Some people are making millions, while kids are dying of cancer, to countries at war and celebrity affairs making headlines. To wake up to this madness everyday is sensory... Continue Reading →
Training in equanimity is learning to open the door to all, welcoming all beings, inviting life to come visit. Of course, as certain guests arrive, we’ll feel fear and aversion. We allow ourselves to open the door just a crack if that’s all that we can presently do, and we allow ourselves to shut the... Continue Reading →
Since everything in the world simply arises, remains, and then passes away, how could it bring us any lasting happiness? We have to ask ourself, ‘Have we ever experienced happiness in the past? Have we ever experienced pleasure? Pain? Suffering?’ We can see that these feelings simply arise, remain, and then pass away. There is... Continue Reading →
We usually appreciate only half of the cycle of impermanence. We can accept birth but not death, accept gain but not loss, or the end of exams but not the beginning True liberation comes from appreciating the whole cycle and not grasping onto those things that we find agreeable.By remembering the changeability and impermanence of... Continue Reading →
"The towns and countryside that the traveler sees through a train window do not slow down the train, nor does the train affect them. Neither disturbs the other. This is how you should see the thoughts that pass through your mind when you meditate." Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Usually we have very strong emotions towards these three groups of people. We are attached to our friends and dear ones, hostile towards enemies and those we dislike or fear, and apathetic towards strangers. To develop equanimity, we contemplate that these three categories are made up by our own mind. It's our mind that discriminates... Continue Reading →
When you touch your sorrow or fear, your anger or jealousy, you are touching everybody's jealousy, you are knowing everybody's fear or sorrow. You wake up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack and when you can fully experience the taste and smell of it, you are sharing the anxiety and fear... Continue Reading →
By Pema Chodron
If you are able to relax—relax to a cloud by looking at it, relax to a drop of rain and experience its genuineness—you can see the unconditionality of reality, which remains very simply in things as they are, very simply. When you are able to look at things without saying, “This is for me or... Continue Reading →
Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. Becoming intimate with the queasy feeling... Continue Reading →
Like waves, all the activities of this life have rolled endless on, yet they have left us empty-handed. Myriads of thoughts have run through our minds, but all they have done is increase our confusion and dissatisfaction.Normally we operate under the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial reality. But when we... Continue Reading →
When you look at a tree in a storm, you see that the top of the tree is very unstable and vulnerable. The wind can break the smaller branches at any time. But when you look down at the trunk of the tree, you have a different impression. You see that the tree is very... Continue Reading →
When you practice compassion, don't "feel" the pain. When you feel the pain, you don't have any space left to practice compassion to anybody. Whenever you practice compassion keep very detached, with attachment...do you understand? This takes balance. "Compassion is something you hold, equanimity is how you detach." Without these two together, only holding, holding,... Continue Reading →
