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2021-03-09 Mindfulness of Breathing (50) Equanimity Factor of Awakening (Part 2) | Otter.ai

2021-03-09 Mindfulness of Breathing (50) Equanimity Factor of Awakening (Part 2)

Insight Meditation Center11min

Gil Fronsdal

00:06

Today is part two of the equanimity factor of awakening. It's also part of this series on mindfulness of breathing.

Gil Fronsdal

00:21

The Buddha presented this a bit like a path. As we stay present for our breath, we're cultivating and deepening meditation practice with a deep relaxation of the body and mind, so that we're not simply focused on the details of our life – the particular activities of the body or mind. We start becoming aware of our state of mind, its quality, feeling, gestalt, or wholeness of awareness that can be here holding at all. It's a mature place in meditation, which we might fall into occasionally in which the mind state is more salient, more prominent than the particular details of what's happening in our body or mind.

Gil Fronsdal

01:19

All of the above are important, but it's good to be more holistic in the practice – at some point to get a sense of the whole – the mind as a whole, the mood, the mind state we have. Those mind states have various characteristics when we get more and more settled – when the mind feels more whole, expansive, clear, with greater clarity and mindfulness. The Seven Factors of Awakening are part of that.

Gil Fronsdal

01:49

And the last factor, equanimity, is part of that. When the mind's really stable in strong awareness with a strong sense of being aware in this inner mind state – this healthy, wholesome mind state – awareness tends to come with a strong sense of equanimity.

Gil Fronsdal

02:06

Equanimity is, very simply, not getting caught in the reactivity of the mind, of being for or against things. It's a wonderful capacity. We still might be for and against things. We might have those thoughts or impulses, but with equanimity, we simply don't pick it up. We don't get involved – they just pass through. They're just fleeting impulses of the moment. They come and they go. We don't pick it up. We don't get involved.

Gil Fronsdal

02:38

And it can lead to tremendous social good. Because when we don't respond socially to the world – by our reactivity and by our quick impulses of being for or against things, then we're more likely to be impartial. There's a really healthy understanding of impartiality. We treat everyone equally. We don't treat people through the filter of our desires and aversions, leaning into wanting, or pulling back because we don't want something. We don't easily get pulled into our preferences.

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