What would actually happen if I made the effort to change the sad way things are? What would be the unintended consequences?

"You have to learn how to develop some equanimity around areas of the world where you look at them and say, “That’s really sad that that’s the way things are.” But you have to look at how much effort you would have to put in to change those things and ask yourself, “What would actually happen if I did make that effort? What would be the unintended consequences?”

Some things in the world you can change without any bad side effects, but there are a lot of things in the world that you have to let go. You have to allow them to be. Because otherwise there’s no way you’re going to be able to train your mind. And your mind is the only thing where you really can take charge and you really can be responsible."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Perfecting the Mind in an Imperfect World"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Equanimity rests on the confidence that as long as you put in positive energy with positive intentions, positive results will have to come out at some point.

"So equanimity means realizing that when things can’t be forced, you’ve got to step back. Whatever you can’t control, you let it take its own time, to develop or go away at its own pace. You focus your efforts instead on the skillfulness of your present intentions, which may require patience and equanimity, doing your best to put as much positive energy into the situation, and not getting upset because the results are not immediate. The important point is that you be secure in your confidence that as long as you put in positive energy, there will have to be positive results — if not right now, then someplace down the line. That’s what you control, the fact that you’re putting in positive energy, putting in skillful intentions right now. As for when these things will bear fruit, that’s up to them, that’s up to the jagged rhythm in the whole mix of your karma. So it’s important that you understand what equanimity means. It doesn’t mean that you’re totally non-reactive to everything,
Read more

So it’s not a question of deciding who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s to blame and who’s not. The question is, do you want to suffer or not?

"We need equanimity in order to deal with difficult situations, but you don’t want to be equanimous about everything that comes along, “You know, the mind isn’t getting concentrated, well, I’ll be equanimous about it. Greed has moved in: I’ll be equanimous about it." Well, that doesn’t work. When things outside aren’t going well, the Buddha doesn’t say to replace them with more pleasant things outside or an I-don’t-care equanimity. He says to remind yourself that the real work, the real problem is inside. Replace householder grief with what he calls renunciate grief. In other words, when the situation outside is bad, you remind yourself that the real problem is not the situation outside. It’s the fact that you still have work to be done inside. That’s why you’re suffering. So that’s a case where you just can’t be equanimous about everything. This doesn’t mean that when situations aren’t going well outside that the other person may not be at fault. But the question is, do you
Read more

As they say in the forest tradition, the sky could be falling but we’re going to stay right here and not let it get to us, because we need a part of the mind that things don’t get to. That’s our sanity. That’s our safety.

“To maintain its health, the mind needs its own place to rest: not just resting in sleep, resting with alertness, awareness. That kind of place requires several skills. One is the skill of just being able to be quiet. Another is the skill of being able to cut away your interest in things outside. Some people find this to be the scary part of the meditation. We’ve been taught to believe that our goodness consists of our being concerned about things outside, and here we are telling ourselves that, for the time being, those things don’t matter. As they say in the forest tradition, the sky could be falling but we’re going to stay right here and not let it get to us, because we need a part of the mind that things don’t get to. That’s our sanity. That’s our safety.” ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu “No One in Charge”
Read more