Unraveling Equanimity: An Introduction to Ten Distinct Types

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.

Well, hello there and welcome. And today we are going to drum roll. Please talk about equanimity. But you knew that because we've been doing that for the season and what we're going to do now, it's the beginning of September, and typically we go on hiatus the end of September. And in this time that we've spent talking about equanimity this season, we, we've discussed it in terms, mostly in more, I'm going to say almost more secular terms, although that might not be fair because we've definitely look at the sudas from the Pali canon to help make points.

But what we're going to do over the next few weeks is get a little more in depth into the more some of the teachings of equanimity having nothing to do maybe with being secular or, or with me using it to help us through what's going on in the world because we know it's been a time of upheaval and a lot of change. And I've been mostly focusing discussions on equanimity around helping ourselves navigate what's going on. So these next few weeks, I'm going to be drawing on a paper that was written by Ann Murphy from the Department of Buddhist Studies in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

And her paper is called the Ten Kinds of Equanimity. And I came across it and I found that it is a very helpful explanation of equanimity. And again, not from a helping us navigate everyday life, although some of it of course will, but more in terms of how equanimity supports you in your practice. And Ann Murphy draws on the teachings from the Visuddhimagga, which is from Bhikkhu Buddhaghosa. And I'm just going to say that Buddhaghosa describes equanimity in 10 different ways. And we're not going to cover I will tell you the 10 today, but there's no way we have time today to learn about all 10.

So today we get started with the understanding that there are 10 different ways to experience equanimity. And we'll maybe have a quick, like one or two sentences about each of them. And then as you might guess, the rest of the month we will go into more depth. And in this way, hopefully there's some balance with the discussions we've been having this year on equanimity and equanimity helping us get through our lives. And this will be a little more focused on equanimity helping us with our practice, which of course is helping us get through our lives.

Okay, so we're going to start off with the 10 kinds of equanimity. There is six factored equanimity. That's the first one. And this means linking equanimity to our senses, right? Seeing, touching, hearing, tasting. And I think that I may have quoted from this, from the sutta mentioned here with one of, in one of our episodes. And it is basically that, you know, here's a quote. Having seen a form with the eye, a monk is neither joyful nor saddened, but dwells equanimous, mindful and clearly comprehending.

And then that's, you know, discussed with each of the senses. All right, so that's, you know, not that's having equanimity about what comes into you, what comes to you from your senses. Then there's equanimity as a Brahma vihara. And definitely we've discussed this in multiple ways because we've discussed the Brahmavaharas before and we've discussed equanimity's place within the Brahmavaharas. And so that's just a reminder. There it is again. There's equanimity as an enlightenment factor. I don't believe that I have, I'll say, purposefully discussed equanimity with you in that way.

Although there are seven enlightenment factors. Mindfulness, investigation of states, energy, rapture, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. And it is possible that I have touched on equanimity in that way, but if I did, it was really probably to support another point I was making in our time together. There's equanimity of energy. I believe that we have discussed that, but just not maybe as specifically and pointedly as I'm learning about it here. But, you know, the midway point of energy between two opposing mental states of laziness and restfulness.

So here's a quote. When a bhikkhu devoted to the higher mind from time to time gives attention to the mark of concentration, from time to time to the mark of exertion, and from time to time the mark of equanimity. His mind becomes malleable, wieldy and luminous, pliant and properly concentrated for the destruction of the taints. And so we're going to spend some time with that in the future. Here's another quote, though, about energy. If energy is roused too forcefully, it leads to restlessness. And if energy is too lax, this leads to laziness.

Got to get that balance. Everybody therefore resolve on a balance of energy, Achieve evenness of the spiritual faculties and take up the object there. Next we have equanimity about formations.

9 insights of knowledge support this. Don't worry, we'll go into them more later. But for now, knowledge of rise and fall, knowledge of dissolution, knowledge of the fearful, knowledge of danger, knowledge of disenchantment, knowledge of desire for deliverance, knowledge of reflective contemplation, knowledge of equanimity towards formations and knowledge of conformity. And so we will be spending some time thinking about equanimity from that perspective. Equanimity as a feeling. I do think that we have absolutely discussed that.

Right. We know that feelings can be classified into, you know, pleasant, unpleasant, or neither unpleasant nor pleasant. That's a theme that we've discussed this season and I think in other ways, other seasons, when we've talked about being aware of what's rising when we're meditating. And so that is something that we have spent a little time on. Equanimity about insight. I could say I could make a case that we have indirectly talked about equanimity about insight. It's a name for equanimity consisting in neutrality about investigation.

Okay, we're going to come back to that one in another episode. Equanimity as specific neutrality. The name for equanimity consisting in the equal efficiency of states. Neutrality of mind is listed as one of the 19 primary beautiful factors. Perhaps a shorter and simpler way to say that for now, is that a mind that possesses the characteristics of specific neutrality toward everything.

Then there's equanimity of Jhana. Jhana being states that you go through in meditation. So equanimity of Jhna is described as a name for equanimity producing impartiality towards even the highest bliss. So not getting attached or not judging your states in meditation, as this is amazing or this wasn't good. Well, equanimity develops in the third Jhna. Equanimity is the predominant characteristic apparent in the fourth Jhna with the abandoning of pleasure and pain and with a previous disappearance of joy and grief a monk enters upon and abides in the fourth Jhana.

Thus the fourth Jhna meditative state is transcends feelings of pleasure and pain or the emotions of joy and grief and manifest as a completely impartial state of mind. Equanimity of purification the purifying capacity of equanimity on the mind in the Visuddhimagga, which is where our references are coming from. Buddhagosa defines this as equanimity purified of all opposition and so consisting in uninterestedness, instilling opposition. It is purified by means of the state of mindfulness, purified by equanimity.

It's going to be good for us to spend some more time with that one. So that is the overview of from the Visuddhimagga what Bhikkhu Buddhaghosa has defined equanimity in 10 different ways and each of these 10 kinds will be discussed by us. Some of them again I believe we have indirectly referenced, but not in this way like when we were having discussions on other weeks. I wasn't saying like this is the first kind or this was the second kind. And so I think it's good to line up the discussions that have been more focused on drawing on equanimity and our Pali canon suttas to help us with with some more structure around the teachings.

So that will be our goal this month as we wrap up season five of the Death Dhamma Podcast. Thank you so much for being here. 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 margaretmaloni.com M A R G A R E T M E L O N I 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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