Fall 2014 Shamatha, Vipashyana, Dream Yoga

Alan starts the session with a brief introduction of the meaning of the aspiration of immeasurable equanimity and its etymology. Further, Alan elaborates on the differences of equanimity among the different vehicles. In the context of the sravakayana, which is focused on the selflessness of persons (the emptiness of an autonomous, independent and permanent self), they realize the emptiness of self but not the emptiness of the skandhas, as they consider they are truly existent. Therefore, the practice of equanimity is for the sake of one’s own liberation, to purify their minds and attain nirvana in order to get rid of samsara. It is interesting to see that according to Buddhaghosa, the catalyst for equanimity is taking responsibility for one’s own actions. It is based on recognizing how karma works. Virtue brings happiness and non-virtue brings suffering. In the mahayana context, in which wisdom and compassion work together as the two wings of a bird to fly, not only the self is empty of inherent existence b