ABOUT EQUANIMITY

To cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel

attraction or aversion, before it hardens into grasping or negativity.
Pema Chdron
As human beings, we are sujeitos to continuous change throughout
life. Taoists speak of ten thousand sorrows and tem thousand joys.
The joy turns to sorrow. Sorrow turns to joy. There is no exception.
Equanimity is a liberating quality that gives us an open, equitable,
peaceful and stable heart, perante the vicissitudes of life.
We develop equanimity being atentos to our reactions to what
Buddha called the Eight Dhammas (phenomena) mundanos. These
eight dhammas mundanos are formed of four pairs of opposites. All of
us at one time or another, are their victims. Cultivate equanimity is to
look deeply how we react to their presence (of opposites) in the
course of our lives.
The first pair is louvor and censure. When we are louvor,
congratulated, it is possible for us to become aware of our reaction?
We reject the compliment automatically to avoid discomfort or, on the
contrary, we rejoice and we expect more? Being criticized, we can see
our reaction? Our response may take various forms: sometimes try to
justify our actions, or the censura, or make criticism falls on the
person in censorship. We'll think immediately that the person is right,
or, conversely, that it is wrong.
Surely it is likely that we feel bad when we are censored. The question
is: can we be attentive to the feeling of unease without getting lost in
it? We remain aware of our reaction to censorship without letting us
take the story? In the case of useful information, we can take
something from her? Otherwise, we are in a position to pass? We can
see that both praise as censorship completely escape our control?
The second pair of the eight mundane dhammas esto relacionados
to gain and loss. How we react to gain? The gain is always something
positive? How do we react to the loss? A loss is always something
negative? When we reflect on our past experiences, it is not just
something we considered a gain turned out to be a loss, and
conversely, something we had taken as loss finally turned out to be a
gain? When we hold on to a gain, there is the fear of losing what was
won? With the attachment born from success, there is at the same
time the fear of failure?
Each culture has its own fixed idea of what constitutes a success or a
fracasso. when we cling to certain pre-defined modelos, we expose
ourselves to disappointment. If we want to find a true inner freedom,
we need to put in question these role models to let emerge our own

understanding of things.Veremos so that gains and losses are part of

the ebb and flow of life.
In the practice of equanimity, we need to become aware of our
relationship to pleasure and pain, the third pair of worldly dhammas.
What happens when we run after pleasure and reject suffering? It is
possible for us to understand the suffering inherent in the pursuit of
this policy seeks pleasure and pain escape? This suffering is inherent
in this pair of opposites? Or you can really experience the pleasure
fully without clinging to it and try to perpetuate it? When we
experience a painful sensation, we can open ourselves to pain without
trying to reject it?
To be free from the eight worldly dhammas we need to understand
their changing nature. Understanding that pleasure and pain arise
and then disappear, seeing that these two opposites are often beyond
our control, we learn not to cling; our non-attachment found freedom.
We open ourselves to pleasure and pain, and yet we are not
overwhelmed by the desire or aversion.
Good and bad reputation are the last pair of the eight worldly
dhammas. We feel the need to be seen by others when we run a
meritorious act? What is our reaction to criticism? What relationship
we have with the status? Making us aware of how we take care of our
reputation, we free ourselves from the opinions of others.
In order to become familiar with these conditions and become more
equitable, we must understand its non-substantiality. The practice of
attention we become more aware of their inherent impermanence. We
see the conditional nature of reputation and understand that lasting
peace and happiness does not come from reconhecimento. We see
that bad words have only temporary effect and should not affect us
permanently. The more we are directed to find our balance in relation
to these conditions, the more we free ourselves of the need to be
perceived in a particular way. then we discover a peace that does not
depend on how others perceive us.
If we can remember constantly bringing surveillance to these worldly
dhammas as they arise in our daily lives, we will begin to see the
present suffering in the attachment. We will begin to see the essential
emptiness and impermanence of conditions. In meditation practice we
may not like what comes up, and yet, the availability to stay with
what is going on is to bring liberation. The less attached to comfort,
the more comfortable we are in relation to ourselves and this world.
The practice of equanimity does not mean that we must become
passive beings. When it's hot we opened the window. But every time
is not in our power to change things, it is possible for us an inner
refuge? This inner refuge is our ability to be impartial.

Sonia Gomes