Balanced
Equanimity is the
10th Mental Perfection:
Equanimity characteristically induces and promotes an
even impartial
neutrality...
Its function is to look upon things as if from above with an unreactive indifference!
Its manifestation is the gradual stilling of
any mental attraction
and repulsion..
Its proximate cause is seeing, that all inherit the results of their
kammic actions.
Its effect is the utter purification
and perfection of all other mental qualities,
by ending both discontent,
and delight, thereby providing the necessary equal
calm required for complete assessment
and accomplishment of these qualities.
Equanimity means Unbiased..
Equanimity means Impartial..
Equanimity means Detached..
Equanimity means Immovable..
Equanimity means Unbeatable..
Equanimity means Unexcitable..
Equanimity means Disengaged..
Equanimity means Indifferent..
Equanimity means Disentangled..
Equanimity means Untemptable..
Equanimity means Disinterested..
Equanimity means Unaffectable..
Equanimity means Disinterested..
Equanimity means Unprovokable..
Equanimity means Undisturbable..
Equanimity means Imperturbable..
Equanimity means Wholly Immune..
Equanimity means Balanced..
Even like a smiling mountain!
Cool Calm is the ultimate Balm!
The Threefold
Equanimity (Upekkhā):
If one is completely indifferent towards:
All internal states
and external phenomena,
All living beings and lifeless things,
All past, present and future events,
How can one ever be hurt, upset,
disturbed, or distressed?
Calm is his mind. Calm is his speech. Calm is his action.
So
indeed is the tranquility, so is the equanimity;
Of one freed by the
insight of right knowledge.
Dhammapada 96
Although a man is richly dressed and adorned, if he is in peace,
at ease, in equanimity, calmed, composed, controlled, celibate,
and harmless towards all beings, then verily he is a Holy One,
a recluse, a sage ...
Dhammapada 142
Equanimity towards all one's own internal states:
physical as mental,
that is indeed a link to Enlightenment.
Equanimity regarding
all external beings, phenomena, and conditions,
that is indeed also a link to Enlightenment.
Samyutta Nikāya V Bojjhanga-samyutta.
Such noble friend finally develops the link to awakening that is Equanimity during
awareness of in-and-out breathing, which protects against damaging
mental states,
tends to detachment, to ceasing, inclines towards release,
and culminates in complete
self-surrender... If, friends,
Awareness of in-and-out breathing,
is so cultivated and
so made much of,
it is indeed of great fruit, of great advantage! One whose
Awareness
of breathing
in-and-out is perfected, well developed, and gradually
brought to refined
growth thus, such one Noble illuminates the
entire world,
just like the full moon freed
from clouds.
Samyutta Nikāya
V Anapana-samyutta.
The Blessed One once said:
Now how, Ananda, in the discipline of a Noble One is there the unsurpassable
development
of the senses? There is the case where, when seeing a form with
the eye, there arises in a
monk what is agreeable, or what is disagreeable, or
what is both agreeable and disagreeable.
He recognizes that: This agreeable
thing has arisen in me, or this disagreeable thing, or this
both agreeable
and
disagreeable thing, has arisen in me: And all that is constructed, conditioned,
coarse and dependently co-arisen! But this is peaceful, this is exquisite, namely
even equanimity!
Instantly, that arisen agreeable or disagreeable thing ceases, and
Equanimity
takes its stance...
Just as a man with good eyes, having closed them, might
open them; or when open, might close them,
that is how quickly, how rapidly, how easily, no matter what it refers to,
Equanimity make whatever
arisen agreeable thing, or disagreeable thing, or both agreeable and disagreeable
thing cease right
there, and
Equanimity takes its even stance! In the discipline
of the Noble One, this is called the
unsurpassable development of the senses
with regard to any visible form cognizable by the eye.
Similar is this
most supreme
development of the other senses.
MN 152
Equanimity
entails:
Not
wanting unpleasant sensations to cease,
and not wanting pleasant sensations to continue.
With the fading of rapturous joy, he remains in equanimity, aware
and alert,
still
physically sensitive to bodily pleasure. He enters and remains in the third
jhāna,
of which the Noble Ones declare: 'In aware Equanimity, one abides in
pleasure...'
With the stilling of pleasure and pain as with the earlier disappearance of elation
and frustration, he enters and remains in the fourth jhana:
Awareness purified by
equanimity, a neither pleasure, nor pain: This is called
Right Concentration...
The elimination of both sensual desires
and of discontent, the ejection of laziness,
the calming of all regrets, just this pure
Equanimity
of being aware of all mental
properties exactly at the moment they appear: That I call the direct knowledge of
release, the breakthrough of ignorance.
Sutta Nipāta V 13: Udaya's Questions
Equanimity is 'Tatra-majjhattata', which designates the evenly
balanced keeping to
the moderate middle of all things. It has as characteristic, that it affects the balance
of consciousness and mental properties as a single function of single taste, which
prevents both overt excessiveness and any lack or insufficiency.
Equanimity thereby
puts an end to biased partiality by manifesting moderation well within range of the
properly reasoned golden middle way.
Visuddhimagga XIV
The Buddha once explained
about a prior life:
Then I would make my bed
in a cemetery ground, with a skeleton for my pillow..
And cowherd boys came up and spat on me, urinated on me, threw dirt at me,
and poked sticks into my ears! While others, exultant, and thrilled brought me
offerings of food, caskets of perfume and incense, and
garlands of flowers...
Yet I do not recall, that I ever showed any partiality towards any of them...
I was the same to them all... Neither arousing any fondness, nor any aversion!
This was my ultimate perfection of equanimity...
MN 12
Lomahamsanapariyaya The Hair-raising Presentation
Podcast on How to gain Equanimity, Balance,
Peace and Ease:
https://soundcloud.com/bhikkhu-samahita/serene-equanimity-upekkha
More on
Equanimity (Upekkhā):
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Serene_Equanimity_and_Beyond.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Imperturbable_Equanimity.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/Unshakable_Equanimity.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Equanimity_Upekkha.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Feeding_Equanimity.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Empty_Equanimity.htm
More
of the 10 mental perfections (paramis):
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/IV/The_Ten_Perfections.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/The_10_mental_perfections_(parami)_in_three_levels.htm
