How to cultivate Equanimity?
Upvote:1
That's quite the complicated sutta!
MN137 has a very detailed and distinct progression. Thirty-six categories, with eighteen for non-renunciates folks and eighteen for renunciates. For both non-renunciates and renunciates, the path to equanimity leads from sadness through happiness to equanimity.
Let's take an example with non-renunciate sights. One who experiences sadness in hunger might find happiness upon seeing a chocolate bar. They buy, eat it and the hunger is gone. The absence of hunger is seen as "happiness". Then the candy companies realize that this is a good business and offer many many kinds of chocolate bar (technically, this is called "over-choice"). After eating many kinds of chocolate bars, one experiences a "meh-equanimity" to any particular brand of chocolate bar. This is lay equanimity.
Now let's take the same example for renunciate sights. One who experiences sadness in hunger might find happiness upon the cessation of hunger after mindfully seeing and eating chocolate bar. They are aware of how hunger passes as food is ingested. They are also aware of a certain aftertaste and afterfeeling once the food is consumed. They are mindful of the changes to their body with each bite of every food. Mindful of the effects of sugar and its ill-effects, they become equanimous towards the sight of chocolate bars, accepting them when no other better food is offered. That is the equanimity of the renunciate in diversity.
The formless meditations lead to equanimity based on unity/singleness. Here one is not concerned about chocolate bars, since that is just a form of food. Instead, one establishes equanimity by the relinquishing of defilements by observing the origin, rise and fall of the five grasping aggregates: form, feeling, perception, choices and consciousness.
That is how I read MN137.
More post
- 📝 Important Commentaries?
- 📝 How to mitigate the negative karmic effect of killing
- 📝 How can there be knowledge of unconditioned phenomenon without any knower?
- 📝 What would be some very concise Buddhist teachings and symbols that could be on (future) coinage?
- 📝 Friend who is the same in happiness and sorrow
- 📝 How did Arya Nagarjuna reached the direct perception of Emptiness?
- 📝 Meditation for Psychosis
- 📝 How do Mahayana Buddhists perceive the world?
- 📝 As a disciple of the Supreme Buddha, what would you do with an animal that is in severe pain?
- 📝 What is the meaning of Dhammavicaya
- 📝 How was my performance in the Fifth precept
- 📝 What is the source of this popular quote about giving?
- 📝 Am I Bearing the pain or observing it, When my leg hurts during Vipassana?
- 📝 Is there a connection between Guilt and Fear?
- 📝 Trouble Maintaining Practice
- 📝 What did Buddha say about dysfunctional families for novice practitioners?
- 📝 Is it a sin to organize liqour & meat on cutomer request as a prt of my job?
- 📝 Suffering caused by uncertainty of whether actions will cause more or less physical pain to dying family member?
- 📝 Nature of Aversion
- 📝 Madhyamaka, theravada and mahayana
- 📝 Direct interaction between Gods and men
- 📝 I am asking personal help, I want to renounce my home?
- 📝 Support for Parents
- 📝 Carpe Diem or Memento Mori?
- 📝 Did Siddhartha Gautama achieve Nirvana?
- 📝 Differences between U Ba Khin and S.N. Goenka
- 📝 Can there be other paths to end suffering
- 📝 Meditation outdoors
- 📝 As a Buddhist, how shall we make sense of the notion that there is no such thing as a Soul?
- 📝 Satipathanna Sutta and contemplating mind externally?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How does one cultivate uplifted energy (paggaha)?
- 📝 Why does the mind always want to 'do something' and how to cultivate 'non-doing'?
- 📝 How to cultivate good
- 📝 Which suttas in the Pali canon give instructions for how to cultivate equanimity?
- 📝 How to cultivate sexual energy with Meditation?
- 📝 How do experienced Buddhists preserve their equanimity and well-being in unfavourable circumstances?
- 📝 How to cultivate the perception of 'Anatta'?
- 📝 How to cultivate Equanimity?
- 📝 How to understand lay equanimity from MN 137?
- 📝 If there is no soul, how can there be rebirth?
- 📝 How to explain what Buddhism is?
- 📝 How does stream entry occur?
- 📝 Lust - How Can it be Overcome?
- 📝 How not to kill the mouse in my house?
- 📝 How to determine the end of a meditation session without a clock?
- 📝 How do Buddhists express condolences?
- 📝 How can I assess the quality of a local Buddhist group?
- 📝 How should Buddhists handle prayer requests?
- 📝 How do you tell a 4-year-old who the Buddha was?
- 📝 How is sexual misconduct explained in regards to the five precepts?
- 📝 How to deal with people and handle rude language?
- 📝 How to deal with bad past karma that makes my current life miserable?
- 📝 As a Buddhist with a Muslim family, community, and background... how do you integrate/cope?
- 📝 How concentrated is access concentration and how would one recognise it?
- 📝 How are 'conceit' and 'identity-view' not the same?
- 📝 If I start doing Vipassana now, how long will it take me to achieve Nirvana?
- 📝 If anatta is a reality, then how do you explain Volition or Will?
- 📝 How do I slow down and start living according to my values? How do I change the direction of my life?
- 📝 How concerned should Buddhists be with the actions of others?
- 📝 How compatible are the beliefs of atheists and Buddhism?