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2021-03-08 Mindfulness of Breathing (49) Equanimity Factor of Awakening (Part 1) | Otter.ai

2021-03-08 Mindfulness of Breathing (49) Equanimity Factor of Awakening (Part 1)

Insight Meditation Center14min

Gil Fronsdal

00:03

The topic for this talk is the equanimity factor of awakening. It's the seventh of the seven factors of awakening. Over the last week, I've been talking about the earlier factors. We're talking about these seven factors of awakening in the context of the practice of ānāpānasati mindfulness of breathing, where we're mindful of the mind. We experience the mind as we breathe in – and then experience the mind as we breathe out. We've taken our time to understand some of the things we can start experiencing, when we experience the mind.

Gil Fronsdal

00:53

The word 'citta,' (the Pali word for mind) is often translated as "mind state." It's not the mind as a thing, like the brain is a physical thing. But rather, it's the way in which we experience our interior life, our mental life, as a whole. Rather than the particular details of different activities of the mind, that go on: particular thoughts, feelings, impulses, intentions – it's the whole of the mind.

Gil Fronsdal

01:33

And how we experience the whole is personal, contextual, and depends on different factors of the mind that come together. It sounds a little bit strange to say this, but the state of the mind – how we experience a state of the mind – depends on the state of the mind. How we experience the shape of the mind, or how we experience this totality of the mind, is based on the state of mind, or which mental factors are strongest.

Gil Fronsdal

02:09

But as we open to the mind, we can see that it has different characteristics, which we can feel. Now that takes a lot of stability, and being really settled in the practice in order to start feeling this whole mind – and the mood of the mind that that might be there.

Gil Fronsdal

02:26

As our practice becomes stronger, there are seven factors, qualities or characteristics that become predominant in this state of the mind we can experience – different ones at different times, and sometimes all of them together. These are the seven factors of awakening: mindfulness, investigation, effort, joy, tranquility, samādhi, and equanimity. These all have different functions, or work in different ways.

Gil Fronsdal

03:00

As a state of mind, mindfulness creates real stability. I could say it differently: the mind doesn't waver, it's not agitated and jumping around when mindfulness or awareness becomes a little more of a state that's present, rather than something that we have to keep renewing, by keeping making the effort of having the intention to be mindful. There's unwaveringness of attention.

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