THE AWAKENED HEART (Bodhicitta)
Equanimity
**** UNDER CONSTRUCTION ****
Updated April 30th, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
At first our perception of the interconnection of our selves with the selves of others is present in some circumstances and otherwise absent. In order to fix this, we need to develop Equanimity and this is the first thing that we work on in the Insight stage. It includes developing equanimity towards objects, situations, AND sentient beings. We need to focus on the sameness and equality of everything. It starts by recognizing that, in the same way as we have no ultimate self, all objects, situations, and sentient beings also have no ultimate self. We are all part of an ever-changing, relative, and interdependent existence.
Part of the idea of equanimity is to recognize the fact that we have many similarities with other sentient beings. There are many ways in which we are all equal and all the same.
Even though, with all beings, we have similarities and differences, we tend to focus on the differences and make them more important than the similarities. However, ignoring the similarities causes us to treat others in ways that reinforce our separateness and difference. This causes problems along the way because it can deny and blind us to our interconnection and sameness, which is to deny an aspect of our own true nature and the true nature of our relationship with others.
Many of our differences occur at a superficial level, whereas our similarities relate to more fundamental aspects of being a sentient being. Beyond our differences in culture, religion, viewpoint, country, race, and gender, there are aspects to being human that we all share. Beyond that, there are aspects of being a sentient being that we share with non-humans as well. These include such basic things as the desire for happiness and freedom from suffering. Even insects run towards beneficial things and run away from harm. It includes the need for nourishment, relationship, and shelter. It includes the fact that all beings have Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Motivation, and Awareness.
We all have a conditioned and conditional existence. This means that we need to find nourishment, protection from the elements, and relationships with others. We are all subject to Birth, Old Age, Sickness, and Death.
We all posess a Body and Mind and at least most of the Body/Mind Collections of Forms, Feelings, Perceptions, Motivations, and Awareness. We gather a set of Forms around us to make us comfortable. We are all attracted to things we like, repelled by things we dislike, and ignore what we feel is unimportant. We divide the world into good, bad, and neutral. We all have a view of the world around us and our role within it. We also possess varying degrees of awareness and varying degrees of acuity of the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking.
We all want to have happiness and want to avoid suffering. We all are attracted to the pleasant and repelled by the unpleasant. Even animals search out things that they like and need and seek safety when under threat of being harmed.
Also, just as we have an underlying skillfulness and understanding that we call BuddhaNature, so all beings have their own underlying skillfulness and understanding. Through Longing and Attachment, our skillfulness and understanding become the disturbed emotions that lead us to act in ways that are contrary to our own nature and ignore or deny the true nature of reality and therefore create suffering. So even though we all have this underlying intelligence, we are caught up in behaviour that increases suffering.
We also begin to recognize that, just as we view ourselves as the centre of the universe, other beings view themselves as the centre of the universe. Our universe revolves around us, or at the most, revolves around ourselves and our family. From there, we tend to have the universe revolve around the other groups that we identify with. This includes our friends, our community, our country, our religion et cetera.
Of course, in reality, there is no centre to the universe at all. Recognizing the role of temporarily placing ourselves in the centre is the beginning of understanding of how relative reality works. This understanding helps us see that anyone can be put in the centre of the universe at any one time. This helps strengthen our sense of equality with others.
To increase our sense of equality, we now begin to examine our relationships with others more closely. We begin to look at our enemies, our friends, and strangers and look for the sameness in the beings that we place in these categories and look at the sameness in our relationships to them.
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