Staying Middle Path: The Role of Equanimity in Reducing Suffering

Hi, this is Margaret Maloney, and welcome to the Death Dhamma podcast. In a series I used to read, occasionally one character would say to the other, may you live in interesting times. It was understood that this was a curse where interesting times meant chaos and difficulty. Well, we do live in interesting times. I mean, don't we always? So this season, together, we will explore equanimity and chaos. Recognizing that many aspects of life are beyond our control. Let's find a sense of balance and peace amid external chaos.

Today we return to our quest to cover the 10 types of equanimity as described to us by Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga. And we're going to cover today 3. Equanimity as a feeling, equanimity about insight, and equanimity as a specific neutrality. Well, we have so many experiences in this life and so many sights and sounds and noises and feelings around us. It's not a surprise that there are multiple ways to draw upon equanimity. For example, equanimity as a feeling. So in the Pali canon, feelings are classified into three kinds.

Pleasant, unpleasant, or neither unpleasant nor pleasant. And that comes from the Samyutta Nikya. Now, you may have encountered that before because oftentimes when we are meditating, I know some of my meditation teachers have taught me to label feelings as they arise during meditation. This has been particularly helpful. And to label something as it arises as either pleasant, unpleasant, or neither, and then to try to put it aside. To try to put it aside. So that has been a helpful meditation technique for me.

So equanimity as a feeling can be described when a good thought concerning the sensual world has arisen, accompanied by equanimity associated with knowledge prompted by conscious motive. In other words, something good comes up and we see it and we recognize it as pleasant, and then we put it aside as a way. Another way to say that equanimity as a feeling, you know, the neither unpleasant nor pleasant response rather than pleasant or unpleasant. So what that means is, again, let me just emphasize that equanimity as a feeling is that ability to see that this thing is either neither unpleasant nor pleasant.

That's the equanimity response. The teachings advise the abandonment of desires in response to pleasant feelings and the abandonment of aversion in response to unpleasant. Right? So it's not, you know, when that good thought comes up, it's not, ooh, I want that, I want to keep that, I want more of that. And it's also not when you know, something difficult comes up. It's not, oh, make that go away. I don't want that. I don't want to have to think that or feel that. Why is that coming up while I'm meditating?

Right. So without a deeper understanding of the nature of feeling, the natural tendency is to respond with attraction to the good things, with what we perceive as pleasant, right? And to push away what we think is painful.

And it's this underlying predilection that's acknowledged with the mindfulness, a feeling meditation practice. So equanimity as a feeling gives us a haven, if you will, of neutrality by mediating this ongoing, you know, stream of feelings that are coming up while we're meditating. The vacillating between pleasant and unpleasant. Equanimity of feeling puts us in that place where we just noticed that something has arisen. But it's not pleasant and it's not unpleasant, and it helps us keep that. I'm gonna.

I'm gonna say it this way, that balance. Now, this brings us to equanimity about insight. So equanimity about insight. I'm reading a definition from the Vasudhimagga is a name for equanimity consisting in neutrality about investigation.

So let's think about this. Here's a method that helps us develop equanimity when we're conducting insight meditation by practicing and realizing this concept. And it goes like this. You might even recite this to yourself as you meditate or even throughout the day as a kind of mantra. It might not be, and it might not be mine. It will not be. It will not be mine. I am abandoning what exists, what has come to be, right? So this approach, which. This is a form of investigation, we're using that, by making that.

That statement, that concept, to relinquish clinging to all attachments, right? And that helps us come up with that realization that I'm not attached to existence, I'm not attached to origination, and hopefully guiding me to see with wisdom that there's a higher state that is peaceful, right? It also means that I remain unattached to equanimity while practicing that investigation. And so here's a quote from the Majima Nikaya. Thus he obtains equanimity. He does not delight in that equanimity, welcome it, or remain holding to it.

Since he does not do so, his consciousness does not become dependent on it and does not cling to it. A monk without clinging, Ananda, because this was a discussion with the monk, Ananda attains nibbana. So this Proclamation of reaching equanimity, even about equanimity, is such an important reminder. And the teaching points back to the simile of the raft, which is the story in the Majima Nikaya about how, and I'm going to paraphrase this teaching, you know, you. You build a raft perhaps to cross the stream, but when you get to the other side, if you keep carrying that raft while you're walking on the trail, that raft is no longer useful to you.

The raft has helped you, so you put it down, you release it. And that is an analogy about how certain teachings get us to a certain point in our practice, and then, like the raft, it's time to let them go so that we can move on to another stage more readily. Right? So Buddhaghosa says, for equanimity about insight, which is neutrality about formations arise strongly in him at that time. It is also equanimity in the mind door, for whatever the subject he clings to, his clinging works. And by the way, he doesn't say cling, he says adverts.

So maybe a better word instead of clinging or adverts is maybe focuses on, pays attention to. Thus, equanimity is used as a powerful mind tool in insight meditation to maintain neutrality towards all the phenomenon that arise, right? So this also, all the phenomenon that arise, which you can see how this relates to, this is pleasant, this is unpleasant. This is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. And so you can see how equanimity of, as a feeling and equanimity of insight, you can see them working together here, right?

So this equanimity is used as a powerful mind tool in insight meditation to maintain neutrality towards all phenomenon that arise, while also engendering an attitude of detachment. And now this brings us to equanimity as specific neutrality, which is the name for equanimity, consisting in the equal efficiency of the conscious states that we have. So now in this section, there's a lot of pieces, for example, 50 mental factors that are combined with feelings, that are combined with perceptions that bring us to many, many potential mind states.

But what we're looking at within all of that is neutrality of the mind, which is what we mean by, we say specific neutrality, and it's listed as one of the 19 factors or beautiful factors that are part of those 50 mental factors that help us reach consciousness, that accompany or accompany consciousness. There's a Pali term, tatramajata, which means neutrality of mind, means there in the middleness. They're in the middleness, which is a nice interesting reminder because, you know, we say the middle way or the middle path, right?

So equanimity is there in the middleness. It's a synonym for equanimity in terms of mental attitude. Tatra means there, magga means in the middle, and when combined with, atata means impartiality or balance of mind. So the Pali term means there in the middle with a balance of mind. In other words, a mind that possesses the characteristic of specific neutrality towards everything. And Buddhagosa takes this mental factor, this, you know, middleness of the mind, equanimity as a specific neutrality, and says that that along with having zeal, resolution and attention are part of the characteristics of having consciousness and having consciousness evenly, evenly.

So to be evenly conscious, that means neutrality. And its function is to prevent. And here's where we really want to go. So thank you for listening to all that. To prevent deficiency and excess or to inhibit partiality, to keep us from becoming too partial. And so here's the neutral and non discriminatory nature of equanimity. That's the emphasis. All right, so each of these three, so that. Well, we've been talking about 10. We're going to have two more that we're going to talk about in our next episode.

So that'll take us to the ten different kinds of equanimity per Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga, with the idea that, you know, in the Visuddhimagga, he's breaking all these many things down for us to help us all on the path. And, you know, we're focusing on equanimity. And so all 10, of course, are meant to be important and work together in a specific way. But what I really want to draw attention to right now is that the three that we discussed today, equanimity as a feeling, equanimity about insight, equanimity as a specific neutrality.

They have at least one thing in common. Your meditation practice, right? Starting with the understanding of the arising of feelings, thoughts that you might view as positive, negative or neither positive nor negative. Add to that not clinging to equanimity. So when you get to that point where you're able to label, let's say in a meditation, you feel like you're labeling more things as neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We don't want to cling to that. We don't get like, oh, this is so great, I have to keep doing this.

Also, I would also say that during our meditation, we maybe shouldn't be counting how many times, right? But you know, you're noticing, you can feel it. So we're not to cling to equanimity and overall, this ability to have this, this specific mind state, it's so important, this impartiality is important overall to our progress on the path because this middle state, this ability to maintain this state keeps us away from excess mentally, physically, emotionally. And these excesses, these highs, these lows, right, these clinging and aversion, this is what leads to suffering.

And we're working towards the path to decrease suffering.

And that's our three kinds for this episode. We're going to have two more next time, then we're going to have an overall wrap up and oh my gosh, I can't believe that I'll try to say this with neutrality. That season five of the episode of the Death Dhamma Podcast is coming to a close pretty quickly here. So thank you. Take care of yourself, take care of your loved ones, and protect the unprotected. You've been listening to the Death Dhamma Podcast with your host, Margaret Maloney. Thank you so much for being here.

Come find me on margaretmaloney.com M A R G A R E T M E l o n I.com and until we meet again. May you be well, may you be happy, may you be at ease, and may you be free from suffering. Bye for now.

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