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people would be expressing kindness.
Would you be weak? Don t we sometimes think of the
compassionate as nice but basically stupid? And the smart as
hateful? The smart as analytical, ruthless, scheming? I don t
think it has to be this way. It takes such great strength of mind
to maintain the attitude of equanimity that there d be no chance
you could be weak as long as you weren t just maintaining
it with a few people. If you can maintain it with enemies, of
course you have to have a strong mind.
It is critical in some jobs to thrust yourself forward, to get
your ideas across and advance. But that does not mean that
you need to disregard others feelings in order to push for your
way. Rather, if you keep in mind that people want happiness
and don t want suffering, you understand their basic orienta-
tion. Your judgment is not clouded by a fundamental igno-
rance, and so you notice opportunities even for sticking your
nose forward all the better. You couldn t do something that
was to the detriment of other people and maintain knowledge
that other people want happiness and don t want suffering,
just like yourself. Establish this closeness. It would be very dif-
ficult to cheat, to step forward and cheat other people.
Do you think you d have to trust everyone? No! Ridiculous.
In fact, you d probably be all the more clever at being suspi-
cious of others motives when necessary. Once you know they
want happiness and don t want suffering, you know they ll do
most anything they can to get it!
lifeti mes 101
Still, if there s one piece of cake left, give it away. And that s
hard, very hard.
One implication of rebirth, of having been associated with
others in many situations, is that we should take joy in their
success, thereby undermining the hold of worldly concerns.
Take a simple example: Suppose you ve looked hard for a
parking place and finally see it, but somebody comes and takes
it. Why get involved in confining thoughts of getting and los-
ing? It s rather useless to feel,  Hey, you son of a bitch, you
took my space! That person s quite happy:  I got a space!
Why not take delight in that other person s finding a place?
Complaining won t help anyway. You were not even giving up
the parking place; you saw it, and as you were driving your
car there, someone beat you to it. Why not take delight in that
person s joy at getting a parking place? Why not? Nothing to
lose. You re frustrated at the person because your pleasure at
finding a parking place was blocked, but you make yourself
even more unhappy by carrying on about it, which in the long
run is indeed insignificant. Try it; see how it feels.
In time, the practice of equanimity, which initially may
appear as if it would put us in a position of weakness and loss,
is quite the opposite. It puts us in a position of strength and of
gain. At that point, you understand that the failure to maintain
recognition that others want happiness, don t want suffering is
what brings about real loss, and truly makes you lose out.
Although the practice of equanimity yields a sense of similar-
ity and thus closeness to everyone, something basically pleas-
ant in everyone, it doesn t mean that you look for some feature
102 a truthful heart
other than this basic aspiration to happiness. For instance, what
are you going to do with a mass murderer? Are you going to
say,  He speaks well ? And if so, does that override all his
faults?  Oh, his faults. He killed many, many people, but he
speaks well. And he s jovial over dinner, so I like him. Impos-
sible! You don t have to look for something like that. The mere
fact that he s a sentient being, wants happiness and doesn t
want suffering, that s sufficient. Isn t it? The point is that you
don t need to make up other things or just emphasize the per-
son s good qualities, blotting out the other qualities.
It s difficult. I used to live on Fourteenth Street in Charlot-
tesville at the bottom of a hill, and cars always whizzed by. I
got fed up with it. I d be trying to meditate and hear whoosh
whoosh whoosh. After a while I d think,  Why the hell do they
always want to go this way and that way? But then when I
thought,  There goes another sentient being. Wow! There goes
another sentient being, it s rather pleasant.
So, in sum, if you come upon blocks preventing recognition
that a particular person is like yourself in the basic aspiration to
happiness, you might reflect on the eight confining concerns and
imagine what life would be like if you didn t care so much about
like, dislike, gaining, losing, praise, blame, fame, and disgrace.
summing up the practice
of equanimity
We are aiming to develop a strong feeling of love and compas-
sion with respect to everyone, but this cannot be done without [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]