This Wednesday Night Meditation included a 34-minute meditation and a 46-minute talk about Caring More . . . and Caring Less. To Care and Not to Care — Two great themes, compassion and equanimity.
I took inspiration from several quotations for this week’s talk, which you can find below.
I hope you find it helpful, and you are welcome to join my free Wednesday Meditations – which are open to everyone!
Meditation on Caring More . . . and Caring Less
Talk on Caring More . . . and Caring Less
Quotes about Compassion
You should cultivate kindness
— Aṅguttara Nikāya 4.29
toward the whole world with a boundless heart:
above, below, and all around,
unobstructed, without enmity or hate.
Live without covetous greed,
fill your mind with benevolence.
Be mindful and one-pointed,
inwardly stable and concentrated.
— Dhammapada 1.6
There are those who do not realize
that one day we all must die.
But those who do realize this
settle their quarrels.
“As I am, so are others;
— Sutta Nipāta 3.710
as others are, so am I.”
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.
Knowing that the other person is angry,
— Saṃyutta Nikāya 1.188
one who remains mindful and calm
acts for one’s own best interest
and for the other’s interest, too.
As the earth gives us food and air and all the things we need, I give my
— Maureen Connor, Buddhadharma, Winter, 2013, p. 88
heart to caring for all others until all attain awakening. For the good of
all sentient beings, may loving kindness be born in me.
Quotes about Equanimity
Whose mind is like rock, steady, unmoved,
— Udāna 4.34
dispassionate for things that spark passion,
unangered by things that spark anger:
When one’s mind is developed like this,
from where can there come suffering & stress?
Walking evenly over uneven ground
— Saṃyutta Nikāya 1.7
perfectly enlightened with perfect knowledge,
they walk evenly over the uneven.
Calm is one’s thought, calm one’s speech,
— Dhammapada 7.96
and calm one’s deed, who, truly knowing,
is wholly freed, perfectly tranquil and wise.
On a branch
— Issa
Floating down river
A cricket, singing
Quote about Compassion & Equanimity
These two – compassion and equanimity – are summarized in this from
the great poet T.S. Eliot, in Ash Wednesday
“Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still”
What Should You Care About More?
If one going down into a river,
— Sutta Nipāta 2.321
swollen and swiftly flowing,
is carried away by the current —
how can one help others across?
Buddhism values “the cultivation of happiness, the genuine inner
— Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, The Art of Happiness, p. 44-45.
transformation by deliberately selecting and focusing on positive mental
states.”
And did you get what
— Raymond Carver
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to
feel myself
Beloved on the earth.
The two great risks are risking too much but also risking too little.
— Jimmy Chin
That’s for each person to decide. For me, not risking anything is worse
than death. By far.
