The far-reaching attitude of equanimity

• The mental habits and karma of compassion
• Rejoicing at your own and others’ virtue
• Clinging to identities
• Understanding equanimity
• Buddhism and politics
• Equanimity is the foundation of love and joy

The mental habits and karma of compassion

Cultivate our motivation because the appearances of this life are so strong to our senses and also to our mental consciousness. We get completely overwhelmed by attachment to what’s happening in this life, and that attachment brings upset and anger when we don’t get what we want. And yet our lives are limited in length and when we die, all the things that we think are so crucial in this life, that I have this and I have that and everything is 100% fair, meaning I have a better deal than everybody else. You know none of that comes with us. The only thing that comes with is the mental habits and the karma that we have created from seeking out those things, from trying to procure and then to protect what we think will make us happy.

So we get all tangled up in our push and pull with external people and external things and we forget about the state of our minds. When we do that then of course self grasping, self centeredness run the show. We create karma under their influence and that comes with us to our next life and all the things we were trying to procure and protect stay here.

So, if we see things that way, it becomes evident that preparing for future lives is important because there may very well be many of them, and we want to be able to practice Dharma during them. So, creating the causes for that depends on what we do now. And that’s why we have to have our priorities very clear, and to be able to discern between a virtuous mind and a non virtuous mind and then to learn the antidotes. To increase one and decrease the other one. So, with a long term goal of attaining buddhahood for the benefit of sentient beings, then let’s in this day create more causes, not only for buddhahood, but for a good rebirth so that we can continue practicing.

Compassion helps us in all these ways to create the karma for good rebirth- create the causes for a full awakening.

I think also one of the very immediate results of generating compassion is that you’re in a good mood. Yeah? So I think when you’re not in a good mood and if you do those meditations, thinking about the kindness of others and how we exist dependent on them and so on, then our minds become quite happy. Whereas when we don’t have compassion, and our mind is critical, and judgmental and complaining, and seeing ourselves as a victim and the world is unfair, and na-nana-na-na… We are then quite miserable. Compassion isn’t a whitewashing the pain in the world. It’s a different way of relating to it than our old dysfunctional way of relating to pain and suffering. Make sense?

Anyway, try it. Next time you’re in a bad mood, maybe that’s right now, try thinking about the kindness of others and cultivating a sense of closeness to them and compassion for them.

Rejoicing at your own and others’ virtue

Okay, so I want to finish that one talk that Lama gave yesterday, he talked about love. Compassion was one paragraph and then he went into more depth about joy. I’ve also noticed that another one of my teachers- whenever we do the- the seven-limb prayer… the fourth limb- you know, I rejoice at my own and others’ merit. He stops for a long time. So that we can actually practice rejoicing. So it took me a while to think okay, why is he doing that? And, of course, you know, one reason is that when you rejoice at other people’s virtue, you create virtue as well. And there’s a math to it. So if you rejoice at somebody who is more advanced than you are on the path, you create half the merit that they created by doing that. Don’t ask me what half the merit looks like. Okay, I have no idea. If you rejoice at the actions of somebody who is at equal level, you create the same merit as if you had done that. And if you rejoice at the actions of somebody who’s an inferior level, you create more merit.

So for everybody who is like- merit hungry… you know, this is a very good practice. But also I wondered why because he would do this in big groups you know, with a lot of- a lot of students there, rejoice at other people’s virtue. And then it kind of dawned on me that the group wasn’t always so harmonious. That there was a lot of comparison, competition, arrogance, jealousy… You know, regular human things that go on in the world and also go on in Dharma groups, unfortunately. So, it dawned on me that maybe he was stopping for us to rejoice so that could we could really do that in relationship to the other Dharma students who were we were studying with. Yeah? So that we could become a harmonious group of people and that’s quite important.

So, if you practice rejoicing, your mind does change. So another little story here, when we ordain, we usually sit in ordination order. Okay? So you get really used to the people on this side and that side. So I had one person on this side… Okay, she wasn’t an italian monk, but she was the person that when people would say she’s been ordained a long time but she’s so angry. And the response was usually, you should have known her before she started practicing.

Okay, so and yet we work together on planning a whole conference… so, and then I had a problem because I was, you know, kind of competing with her because she was a powerful one. And she knew what she wanted and she was gonna get it, but I’m not like that. (laughter) Yeah? You know that I am a very lackadaisical person and whatever people want I say yes. So uh.. I’m a real push over. (laughter) Not like her. So, yeah, you know, we had some problems and then the people up the line I was jealous of them also. Okay, because most of them knew Tibetan. And I never managed to learn Tibetan and I tried so hard, you know, in studying here and studying there. And when I had a visa, I didn’t have a teacher and when I had a teacher, I didn’t have a visa and when I had a visa and a teacher, I was sick. That’s my excuse for never learning Tibetan. But I was very jealous of the people who knew Tibetan because they could go right in and talk to our teachers directly and I couldn’t do that.

So I would look up the line, and… What color do you turn with jealousy?

Audience responds: Green.

Some people say green. Some people say red. Red is anger. Yeah, but jealousy is a subsidiary of anger. Yeah? Maybe you- you have Christmas colors for both. You turn green and you turn red. Look up the line, jealousy down the line, more jealousy. Okay, looking at myself… huff… competition. I was quite miserable. Okay? So, there is something quite important to the practice of rejoicing, because it is a very direct antidote to jealousy. Of course, it’s the last thing you want to do. When you’re comparing yourself to others and you think somebody’s better than you. You don’t want to rejoice. You want to find something to pick at to bring them down to your own level. Okay? But that’s kind of pretty nasty, miserable mind, isn’t it? To always be looking at something to pick on in other people. Whereas if we could stop the competition, and just rejoice at the goodness in the world, we would have a very different attitude. Okay?

So, I think jealousy is kind of something we really create for ourselves and it’s miserable. And I also think it’s good to be wise, if- if you are going to be jealous be careful of who you’re jealous of. Because you may get what they have and become like them, and then you’ll see the misery, the dukkha that they have, and you’ll want to be free of that. As they say, be careful what you want because you might get it. When we’re jealous of somebody, their situation seems perfect and ours is like bleh so we want to be like them and then we get all the problems they have. Which we don’t see when we’re jealous of them. That’s why I am not a fan of competition. His Holiness talks about competing with yourself to do better. Yeah… But there’s something for me just about competition that means there’s a winner and a loser. And I’d rather not see people as winners and losers or to see myself as a winner or loser. Yeah? Because that kind of gradation of people is not so nice.

Clinging to identities

Okay, so, Lama talked a bit about joy and it’s the antidote to jealousy. And then he talked about equanimity, so I will find that file now. Then, we’ll just finish that up. Okay, just to review what we did yesterday, where we left off. He was saying that the Kadampas say that when the teaching shows a reflection of the ego and the ego freaks out completely so that it hurts in the heart this is the real teaching. Okay? That’s because we’ve constructed this whole ego identity of who we think we are starting with just the grasping at an inherently existent I, and then the aggregates as inherently existing and then we create all of our conventional identities, and we think that we are them, and especially nowadays, you know, everybody has an identity even stronger than they used to. And you’ve got to let society know what your identity is, and the proper words they should use to talk about it and what they should say and what they should not say. And it becomes quite a big deal.

I was just reading something in the- in the New York Times that now, the author of this one essay, was saying now, the word woman has been left out of English vocabulary. Because now the new terminology, because you have to include trans people, okay? And I’ve read this in different articles, pregnant people, okay?. You don’t say pregnant women. You don’t say a pregnant couple. You say pregnant people. Okay? For women in general, you say menstruating bodies or you say bodies with vaginas. Those are the new terms. So the person who’s writing this article… this is the New York Times, was saying, you know, what about women? We’ve been left out on the far right. We’ve been left out on the far left and reduced to body parts. Okay. So, it was interesting to read this but at the end I thought this is another clinging to identities. You’ve got to use the right word to talk to me. Otherwise, you’re biased and discriminating. You just see me as a body part. Which may or may not be true through some people’s eyes, but who wants to go around, adopting somebody else’s definition of who you are?

Anyway, when our identities are hit by the Dharma, we freak out. You’re not calling me by the right term. You’re excluding me. I don’t belong. I was just also asked to be a reviewer or commentator- I’m not quite clear on it. Some people want to rewrite the stories of the major religions to be more inclusive of people and to update them. So, on one hand, you know, it’s interesting. On the other hand, you know, we want to update. We want to rewrite the stories that have been part of the tradition for 2500 years. Yeah? You know, to me- I’m gonna write this back to them- to me, how can you rewrite a story like that? I can see, as we do very often, we’ll take a story and we will apply it to how it would look nowadays, you know, and it turns out quite funny, but also quite realistic in a way. So seeing things in that way to me that that’s okay, but to rewrite a story…

How did I get off on this? It has to do with identities. Yeah? Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s like we need stories that talk about our present situation and I can understand that but what about taking the old stories and writing your own version instead of rewriting them? I think what I’m objecting to is rewriting, implying that the old stories weren’t good enough. You leave the old story, but like let’s play and we can talk about a new story. I mean, often in the EML, I do this. I talk about how the Buddha snuck out without his parents knowing, and how we used to do that when we were young. And then how we saw all sorts of things that our parents didn’t want us to see because we were supposed to do exactly what the family line was, and so it’s the Buddha’s story, but we talk about it how it relates to our life. But I don’t see that as rewriting the Budda’s story, because it doesn’t speak to people these days.

So the key concept that I’m trying to get across here is how we hang on to our identities because it’s that hanging on to our present identity, that then we want everything to reflect my identity. So that I am seen everywhere. Okay? Some people I think will get quite mad when I talk like this because identity politics is quite the thing now. I’m not saying that we don’t have identities. I’m not saying to overlook yourself or overlook others. What I’m saying is when we exaggerate the importance of conventional identities and solidify them- yeah? Then, you know, we’re creating boxes that we put ourselves in and that we put other people in, and those boxes can get quite concrete sometimes and they become a prison for us.

So you can all get mad at me because I said that. I have said that to some audiences and people get really mad at me. Yeah? I was- Geshe La, you’ll appreciate this one. I was asked to speak at one Dharma Center about- about women in the Dharma, and you know, like that… I started talking about identities and how we cling to identities and then, in the q&a session, somebody said, Okay, who do you want to be like? Who’s your role model? And I said, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and they all went oh… you were supposed to say Tara. You know, how dare I say a man is my role model. Tara should be.

You know, I don’t judge my role models by the shape of their bodies. Okay? It’s not that His Holiness is better than Tara or Tara is better than his Holiness, but his Holiness is- you know, I’ve met him face to face. Tara, you know, just lots of visualizations but no visions. (sighs) Yeah? But people- they were really mad at me because of that. Isn’t that interesting? You know… so, yeah because they had an idea of if you are a woman, you should have Tara as your role model. If not Tara, then Vajrayogini. Then Machig Labdron. Okay? (Voice from audience inaudible.) Mahapajapatibuti, but you can’t have a man as your role model. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

Understanding equanimity

Okay, let’s go on to equanimity. This will calm you down a little bit. (laughter) But this is precisely why equanimity is so important- that we don’t get, you know, stuck in these things. Okay, so the words of the prayer for equanimity- yeah? Should we do that one line? May all sentient beings abide in equanimity free of bias, attachment and anger. Okay, so Lama is saying their meaning is very powerful. You want to release all mother sentient beings from holding some close with desire and pushing others back with hatred. You want to make all beings, including yourself, achieve equanimity, the state of release from these extremes. People are now saying equity. I don’t know it, but somehow in the social action dialogue people are saying equity instead of equanimity. I’m not quite sure on the difference between the two. Equanimity is what the Buddha is talking about here. What’s equity? One of you know? (Looks around the audience.)

Audience member: When I was working in public health in New Zealand, equity is about giving people the resources that they need so they can achieve the same state. So they get the analogy of two people trying to look over a fence. One person might be told they don’t need a step ladder. The other person is quite short so you need to give them a step stool. In terms of other people, like sometimes in New Zealand in the indigenous population or others, disadvantaged or discriminated against groups, they need more help to be able to achieve the same social economic opportunities, educational opportunities. So it’s not giving people the same thing. It’s not treating them the same actually is giving them what they need, whereas equanimity is an evenness so equity is different.

Different audience member: I have never heard the term equanimity used when it comes to social equality. That’s actually a word that most people don’t hear at all.

Ven Chodron: So we’re just talking two different vocabulary-

Different audience member: Equity is goods and resources. Equanimity is a characteristic. Not a characteristic with equanimity- it’s a quality.

Ven Chodron: Here in Buddhism, we’re talking about it as an attitude towards other sentient beings. I bring that up because, you know, again, people pointed out to me that sometimes my vocabulary is not up to speed. What do you expect from a boomer? (laughter)

You want to release all mother-sentient beings from holding some close with desire and pushing others back with hatred. Why do you want to do that? People think holding some beings close with desire is happiness. Yeah? That it’s what gives structure to society. If we didn’t have that, then people wouldn’t care about each other at all. There wouldn’t be small units of people taking care of each other. And parents would abandon children and why should we have equanimity for everybody? Yeah? Also, they say, having the people you’re close to that brings you much joy and much happiness. If you felt equanimous to everybody, everything would be so boring. Okay? So you might think that or have heard other people say it. The assumption underlying that, okay, a few assumptions… One is that desire brings happiness, you know, attachment brings happiness. So then you have to investigate that. Here’s where applying our intelligence is important. That’s why we’re praying to Manjushri to have some intelligence. You know, Is it true that attachment brings happiness? And then you examine your life and all the times you’ve had attachment, and at the beginning, there is happiness, and there is security but is the relationship always happy? With the people you’re attached to? Anybody here had a relationship with anybody, parent, child, even your pet frog, you know where you’re always happy? Okay, so that assumption is wrong. The other assumption is that if you don’t have attachment and aversion, or hatred, anger, if you don’t have those two, then your life is totally boring and you’re indifferent like a zombie. I don’t know if zombies are indifferent. But anyway. You know, is that true that if you lack attachment and hatred, your life is boring? Is it true that if you’re not equanimous, you just are indifferent to everybody? Yeah?

You think the Buddha’s indifferent to all sentient beings? He generated great compassion so that then he could be indifferent. No. That’s not it. Okay? We have to really understand what equanimity is. And equanimity here is an openness of the mind, you know, that is lacking in this judgment. And if we look where is this- what’s in the center of this judgment. Who’s at the center of the judgment? Me. If you’re nice to me, you’re my friend. I’m attached. If you’re mean to me, you’re an enemy. I don’t like you. Okay? So, it’s based completely on how people relate to us, as if the whole rest of their life doesn’t count. That’s not very fair to people. So here with equanimity we’re really trying to broaden the mind and see that everybody’s been kind at one time or another. Everybody’s been mean at one time or another, too, because we’re talking about beginningless time. So instead of judging people on the basis of how they relate to me, the all important me, we see them as sentient beings- equally wanting happiness and not suffering, equally being kind and so on. So it’s a very different state of mind that is not indifferent. Because you have been thinking about their kindness, to overcome the antipathy you have towards them. Yeah, so there’s a certain kind of openness and there is an Italian word- disponibile. There’s not an English word that I’ve come across, but anyway. You kno, it’s a feeling of kind of closeness to others but not any kind of grasping, just a respectful closeness, maybe. It’s not a very good translation. Anyway, okay, so you want to release all mother sentient beings from holding some close with desire and pushing others back with hatred. You want to make all beings, including yourself, achieve equanimity, the state of release from these extremes. You take responsibility to lead all mother sentient beings to that realization of equanimity, and you request the blessings of Guru Manjushri to be able to do this. Okay?

Immeasurable equanim- I mean, just even you have equanimity towards one person, it makes it so your mind isn’t like a roller coaster towards that person. The more you know, if we can have immeasurable equanimity towards all sentient beings, it really stops this roller coaster of a mind. Do you know what I mean? Yeah? You wake up in the morning and then you think okay, what do I- who am I going to see today? Oh, I get to see so and so. Oh, I’m happy. Then I have to go to a meeting with so-and-so and bleh. Then after that I get to go out to lunch with that friend. Oh, good. Then after that I have to work on this project with this jerk. Bleh. Then I’m going home and I’m seeing my family. Yeah. Except we had a fight yesterday. Bleh. You know? And your mind is just like a yo-yo, up, down, up down. Yeah? And, you know, okay… you know, that’s what happens but do you want to continue being a yo-yo?

I was at a conference- no, not a conference, a public talk, and somebody asked His Holiness, you know, if you get rid of attachment and anger, then your life is so boring. You need the attachment to make you happy. You need the anger to- you need suffering. That’s what it was. You need suffering so that you know what happiness is. Yeah. Only the people who are content say that. When people are unhappy, they don’t say you need suffering to know what happiness is. I’ve never heard anybody who’s in a state of suffering say that. It’s only the nice people. So they said, don’t you have a boring life? I mean, does His Holiness look like he’s bored?

Yeah, it’s like… I gotta do the same thing every day. Say my practices then they schedule so many interviews with all these beings. Oh, what a drag. I’m just totally bored. I want another more exciting life. I’m tired of being the Dalia Lama. I’m out of here. Yeah? Does his Holiness show that in his life? No, he’s about happiest person you could meet. So he replied to this question. And he said, you know, well, yeah, it could be true. You feel happy. You feel misery. Your life is more, um- What word did he use? Animated. Something like animated. You have a more active, animated life. But he said, I just prefer to be kind of peaceful and steady. Yeah? So I thought was, you know, really good for somebody who was probably alternating going to the disco and getting intoxicated with coming home and crashing and feeling lousy. That that was a really good response for somebody like that, and for the rest of us.

So Lord Buddha’s idea is- oh, wait a minute… Immeasurable equanimity is a very elevated state of mind. It is not like communist idea of equality of all people. Lord Buddha’s idea is completely different. But communism takes Lord Buddha’s idea into politics. This is interesting for me. They make- they take many profound religious philosophies into the bathroom to use. (laughter)

Yeah, he had really good analogies. How, you know, we take some beautiful idea and then misconstrue it to fulfill our own selfish wishes. So this incredibly logical philosophy is taken into mundane politics and used in an idealistic way. But it is impossible to do this. Equanimity is a manifestation of the mind. You do not have equanimity inside. If you do not have equanimity inside, you cannot cause others to have equanimity. If it is not part of you, it can never become part of human beings. It is just false. So we may talk a lot about equanimity but actions speak louder than words. So we have to look at our lives and are we acting with equanimity? Or do we play favorites? Yeah?

You should not be confused by this type of false ideology, like taking the Buddhist idea of equanimity and making it into a political thing, justifying communism. Especially how communism manifested- well, both in Russia and China it manifested differently, but the suffering was amazing in both countries. Okay.

You should not be confused by this type of false ideology. Nowadays in the West, young people are very idealistic when they hear the philosophy that everybody should be equal they become emotional and excited. Here we have so much material, especially the rich men. They become angry and jealous because the potential for anger is there. Young people are living in difficult times and when the philosophy comes, they burst into fire. Yeah? It’s true and it’s true now, too. Yeah? You get really- you hear some philosophy and (motions like an explosion). They’re angry with society and angry with rich people, and also their rage is partly out of jealousy. The idea of equality is good but they do not know a realistic way to put it into action. It is important for us to have this knowledge.

So Buddhism does talk about- it gives us the method to create a mind that has equanimity. But we have to figure out for ourselves what that means in terms of our actions. Okay, because some people- I’ve seen with Westerners, equanimity, you know- what is it? Robbing from Paul to feed Peter? Or you rob from Peter to feed Paul? Or something like that. So equanimity can become a reason to take things away from rich people and give it to poor people. Yeah? Or equanimity can be a reason- what we call mickey mouse equanimity. I have equal feeling for everybody. So you are the one who’s managing the monasteries, finances so, you know, these people come in and they’re broke. So, you know, you give some to this person and some to that person and then suddenly the monastery’s coffers are empty. And you know, that’s called equanimity. Okay, so- like Lama gave the example yesterday and what he was saying… you feel equanimity so yeah I sleep with everybody because I have no preferences here. You know, it really gets to be quite ridiculous. So the thing is that we live in a society where there’s conventional customs and not all conventional customs are good, but some are and some are worthwhile. And being polite is one of those, you know, whatever polite looks like in a particular culture. It’s good to follow that.

So, we treat people differently according to what our roles are in society. We are not our roles. Okay? Our role is just a role that we are in temporarily, but when we’re in that role, then there’s certain ways that, you know, the custom is for you to act. Okay? So if you’re the manager of a project… yeah? You should manage the project. You know? That doesn’t mean you’re a dictator. But it doesn’t mean, you know, if you just come in and you’re with a team, and you just say well, I don’t know what this is all about. Yeah? How are we going to do this? You know, that’s not suitable if you have been given a certain position and responsibility. Okay? Equanimity isn’t oh you have a two year old- well, you give your twenty year old matches so you might as well give your two year old matches, too. You are having equanimity. Yeah? You want to get the two year old matches to play with? So we still have to follow a certain conventional way of acting- of etiquette and being polite. But inside of ourselves we have an attitude that doesn’t play favorites towards people, and doesn’t block anybody out. Does that make sense?

Buddhism and politics

It it’s easy to hear but to really think in your own life how am I going to act with equanimity? In these different situations. How am I going to cultivate equanimity in my heart? And then how am I going to act with it? Okay. The idea of equality is knowledge, but the wisdom knowing how to achieve it is something else. So he is differentiating between knowledge and wisdom here. With knowledge alone, it is difficult to put the idea into action. Even the communist Chinese have degrees of living standards in their own society. Professors live at a certain standard, then soldiers, then the middle class. Okay? So there’s an idea about equanimity but communism hasn’t attained any kind of equality there. So it is different. It is dangerous for you this think I learned from Lama about egoless. Buddhism teaches egoless. Oh, fantastic, incredibly good idea. And then you go into society in London and make everybody agitated and crazy. You should not interpret it this way. I am not being political. I am giving this example because if we are confused, it can be dangerous. So we take a Buddhist idea, we twist it in some way to make it validate something that we believe and then we try and spread it and it creates confusion. This is why I say do not take this profound philosophy that should be practiced at the level of consciousness and try to make it an external thing.

So we’re practicing equanimity in our mind, but that doesn’t mean we go through society, you know, completely turning everything upside down trying to make everybody equal. Because, you know, we make everybody- everybody has the same thing, but not everybody wants the same thing. So is that equality? Everybody has the same thing but not everybody wants what they were given? Okay. Having the equanimity thought towards all universal sentient beings releases one from agitation because if the consciousness is not fundamentally in equanimity, an equilibrium, but is an extreme and erotic view, then it will be impossible to integrate one pointed conscious energy into the yoga practice.

Okay, so he’s saying that if we don’t have equanimity towards sentient beings, then our- our consciousness is very agitated. I like this one. I don’t like this. That one. I want to get this for this person. I like- I want to deny the person I can’t stand any happiness. So the mind is really agitated and with that kind of mind, there’s no way to settle the mind into the concentration that you need for practice. The extreme mind is difficult. Tell me about it. Anybody here have an extreme mind? (Looks at audience) Yeah? We are this extreme then we’re that extreme? One of Lord Buddha’s brothers was running with ladies day and night with unbelievable lust. This was I think his cousin, Nanda. Yeah? Impossible. But Lord Buddha has a solution for his brother’s completely hallucinating extreme lust. He could not give teachings directly because it would be like the situation where I am at a nightclub having a good time with twenty girls, drinking and dancing and somebody comes and says, here listen to the Dharma. (laughter)

Yeah? I am going to go completely berserk. It is impossible to change at that time. If Lord Buddha comes and explains your mind is going that way, I will say I don’t want to hear it. Come on, leave me alone. Okay? So you have to have the right time to teach something or to even to say something. And also you need to know the appropriate thing to say at any particular time. You can’t just have a great idea and then, like he said, go in the nightclub and start proselytizing and converting people. It’s just not gonna work. Okay. But this is what the people, you know, I’ve met a number of people who start dharma and it’s really good and I want to take precepts. The first four precepts. I don’t want to take the fifth precept. The fifth precept is the sticky point for most people. Okay. No, I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not just drugging all the time. But there’s just social situations where it’s nice to have just a little sip of something, because if I turn down a drink, people will think I’m very prudish, and then they will look down on Buddhism for being prudish because you can’t even have any little bit of alcohol. So you see, for the benefit of Buddhism, to give non Buddhists the right idea of Buddhism, I’m not going to take the- the fifth precept. And anyway, all my old friends- where am I going to see them? It’s not in church. I’ve got to drink and drug with them, you know, because that’s what we all used to do together before. And, you know, that’s how I spend time with them. And while we’re drinking and drugging, I’ll tell them about the Dharma. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that. Yeah? And I kind of go… Do you really expect me to believe that? I don’t say that of course but that’s what I’m thinking. So you know, this is what we often do- how we- yeah, we rationalize, we justify, we make excuses.

And if you try and do that with your old friends when you’re all like blaah or hallucinating about something, you know, what are your old friends gonna do? Oh, yeah, I’m on psilocybin now. Or what’s the new thing? Ayahuasca. I am on Ayahuasca now and it’s supposed to give me insight about death. So please, teach me Buddhist meditation on death. And then, you know, if you have taken Ayahuasca with your friend, you now have the perfect opportunity to teach them the Dharma. You know, because Ayahuasca’s suppose to, you know, takes you through that some death experience. Oh, so now I get to teach them all about the death meditation. So the first point is… (acts spaced out and pauses)… death is definite and everybody’s going to die. Did you get that? Did you get it? And you don’t know the time of death so it could come any time. Like now! (Continues acting spaced out.) You know, now I want to learn the eight visions for death. Yeah, okay. Go ahead. Don’t invite me to teach there. Okay, but yeah, this is another thing I hear. And I’m sure there are people who are mad at me for saying this. Okay.

So with great skill, Lord Buddha took his brother to a place that was incredibly miserable, and when his brother saw this place, he asked, wow, what happened to this miserable environment? There was a huge pot with someone making a fire under it and another person was asking what is going to happen in this pot? The person making the fire said in the human world Shakyamuni Buddha’s brother is day and night intoxicated by a lustful mind, and when he dies, he will be reborn in this pot. So the brother freaked out. Seeing this miserable situation and hearing that conversation made him incredibly sensitive and aware. He was so shocked by the experience that he sat thinking and thinking, not even eating or drinking. Then again with great skill, Lord Buddha showed his brother an incredibly beautiful environment, and his mind gained some balance. He was neither extremely upset nor extremely happy. His mind was free from extreme hallucinations, and there was space. Then Buddha gave him teachings and then went (hits one hand against the other) palm in his mind. Suddenly he became an arhat and gained release from this ego. That really happened.

Equanimity is the foundation of love and joy

It is necessary to practice the Yoga Tantra method with a mind that has strong fundamental equilibrium. For our mind to be controlled and put in one direction it has to be made ready by attaining the state of equanimity. All the way to this extreme, it’s gonna be hard to get to that one. The experience of equanimity itself, equal feeling towards all universal living beings, is blissful because the dualistic, extreme unbalanced, unequaled mind is painful. If somebody puts a nail into your body, it is painful. Similarly, the extreme mind prevents the blissful, peaceful state of consciousness.

So think of when your mind is extreme. Have you ever been extremely depressed? Your whole vision of the world is like blah, there’s nothing here. You think that’s reality? Is it reality? It’s an extreme mind, isn’t it? If you think oh, I am so special and everything wonderful is gonna happen to me. I’m entitled to everything. Then that’s also extreme. Yeah? Okay, to be on the lookout for the extreme mind. If only I had this relationship then everything would be perfect. If only this person said these words to me then I would completely forgive them and all my anger would be gone. Yeah? Will anger that we’ve been nurturing for decades disappear because somebody says a few words? I don’t know.

Okay. The extreme mind prevents the blissful, peaceful state of consciousness. Okay, so that’s the end of that talk. Just the last sentence. As it is explained in the graduated path, if you do not have equanimity you are like a rocky mountain. Without removing the rocks you cannot plant seeds to grow. Without the realization of equanimity as the foundation, it is impossible to have love, compassion and joy. So this is talking about from the Mahayana viewpoint where you want to develop love, compassion, and joy towards all sentient beings. Okay, if you want to just develop metta towards one, two, or you know, a few sentient beings, you don’t need that kind of equanimity equilibrium. You don’t need that towards all sentient beings. Yeah?

Okay, so we have a little bit of time for Q&A today. Before we go on to the next topic. Yeah?

Audience member: Can equanimity be put just in terms of love, compassion, and joy, as in having equal of those things towards other people? Like can it be defined in that way as having equal love, compassion, and joy toward all beings? Because I think I’ve heard of equanimity spoken about like that’s what it refers to, as having equal love, compassion, and joy.

Ven Chodron: So you feel equal love towards everybody, equal compassion, equal joy towards everybody. That’s the end result, but you have to start with developing equanimity at the beginning before you cultivate love, compassion, and joy. Because we have to get rid of the mind that is attached to this one and have an aversion to that one. Okay? So that evening out of the playing field is what gives our mind space to develop the love, compassion and joy towards all beings. Because you know, how are you going to have equal love towards all beings if you can’t stand some people and think other people are fantastic?

Audience member: So you have to reduce your attachment and anger first before you can cultivate the other three immeasurables towards everyone.

Ven Chodron: You can meditate on the other three immeasurables but your meditation will bear much more- you know will have- yeah, will bring something more if you have the equanimity first. It’s like you want to decorate a room but the room is filled with garbage. So you can bring in all the nice things to decorate it but if you don’t take out the garbage first…

Different audience member: I was reviewing Yeshi Thabkhe’s teachings on equanimity. And I was just a kind of a clarifying approach, I think. He taught that equanimity must follow the ability to generate loving kindness. It says equanimity must follow the ability to generate loving kindness. So he talked for a bit about the importance of being able to cultivate loving kindness. There was a question about this and he went back and said, yes, it’s very important to do the practice for loving kindness for equanimity. And then he went on to say to- you must habituate yourself towards loving kindness as often as possible to develop equanimity.

Ven Chodron: I don’t understand. Do you have any idea? (Faces another audience member.)

Same audience member: I just wonder how interesting, like- which, like… the order.

Ven Chodron: He was teaching Kamalasila’s middle stages of meditation when he said that.

Same audience member: Stages of the path.

Geshe Tenzin Chodrak: My two cents here. Just making a guess because I haven’t seen this particular teaching to know what it was. Uh, listening to it, there could be some translation things in terms of ‘follow’ or ‘followed by’. It is a big difference there. There is a distinction between what we usually make between the so-called equanimity and the practice of the seven-point cause and effect as in this section, and that of equalizing and exchanging. So, equalizing and exchanging- that is definitely following compassion in that is meant to enhance compassion. In that context, the so-called equalizing which sounds similar to that of equanimity, may have been a mistake.

Different audience member: Where I’m stuck is on like, to getting through of anger, like resentment- I found out that in my case, is like a defense mechanism. Like in order to avoid being hurt or being in trouble again, or whatever. What’s your advice on that to not to be stuck there?

Ven Chodron: So there’s a feeling of vulnerability. A vulnerability that you’re afraid somebody can hurt you again. And so as a protection method, you’re saying that you can get stuck in terms of you don’t want to release the resentment because that would make you open to other people’s anger and blame and so forth. Yeah, so what’s the antidote to that? Okay, so when we trace back that aversion to hearing unkind words, you know, there’s also behind that aversion is an attachment to reputation and attachment to hearing sweet, ego-pleasing words, an attachment to praise and approval. Yeah? So you want people to look at you in one way and speak to you in another way.

But you’re seeing resentment as something that’s going to protect you from them trashing you or being cruel or something like that. Because if you have resentment, if you have anger then you’re holding them at a distance. They can’t touch me. But when we have that kind of reaction to others, we are still very captivated by those people. In the sense that we’re clinging on to this emotion towards them, and it’s influencing our behavior in an adverse way. Because we’re like this all the time with people. If we’re able to decrease our attachment to reputation, to approval, to praise… The more we can reduce that attachment, the more we reduce the aversion to hearing the kind of words that we don’t like. And for me when I- when I look into this issue, like what’s going on? I don’t know how to evaluate myself. I’m out of touch with myself. I don’t have a realistic view of myself. So I’m looking for other people to tell me I’m okay. Yeah?

And if other people tell me I’m wonderful, and I’m good, and I’m this and that, then that means I really am like that. And I feel like (sigh) okay, I’m somebody. I’m valued. I’m loved. I’m cherished. I’m important. And then if the next person comes along and says, you jerk and you messed up this, and you messed up that- again because I can’t correctly evaluate my own state of mind and my own actions, I believe them, and then I go to oh, I’m so depressed. I must be really awful like this person said I am. So my whole self-esteem is this yo-yo thing. You know, you praise me and I feel good about myself. You blame me, I feel bad about myself. You know? The whole thing is because I’m not in touch with myself. And by in touch with myself, what I mean is looking at our own mind and being able to identify the different mental states that are there. You’ve studied the text Lorig, and so you know about what are virtuous mental states, what are non virtuous ones. You can begin to identify them in your mind. And then, you can learn the antidotes to them and you apply the antidotes. And when you can do that, then you’re not so- you can see yourself more clearly. You know your faults, but you also know you can apply an antidote to them. You know your good qualities, but you also know that there’s nothing to get super excited and arrogant about either. Okay? So, yeah your mind is more balanced. It doesn’t go up and down depending on what people say to you so much. So there’s a lot more inner peace. Yeah? It takes a lot of work. This is some internal work that we have to do. So it takes work, but it’s worth it.

Different audience member: In terms of joy, and cultivating joy and to reduce jealousy, I find that a lot of the things that I’m jealous of are things that I’m renouncing now. So the things I used to be really jealous over are things I’m giving up. And so I’m a little confused about- do I rejoice in my friends when they still have those things or do I generate compassion?

Ven Chodron: Oh, my friend, they went out and got really loaded last night. I rejoice. I think you can answer that question. You don’t want to rejoice at non-virtue. You want to rejoice at virtue. So we’ll close now.