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THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF EQUANIMITY
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vent appeal, return to me my ornaments and expiate for your
sin
The saint was unresponsive to all this appeal The artisan thought that the saint had fallen in for the gold and deserved some punishment He closed the door and brought some wet hide He tied the saint's head with it tightly The saint rolled down The sun scorched the leather and the head of the saint
The Monk found the ire of the artisan rather justified He, certainly, was afraid of the imminent royal wrath The monk could not utter the truth as it would result in the death of the cranes The whirlwind of the events was to demand somebody's death Why not scrifice myself, said he to himself
He resolved to sacrifice himself He engaged himself in meditation The mind lost all contact with the body When the mind sticks to the body the pain is magnified When the mind is fully concentrated the dispassion acts like an analgesic This is the fruit of equanimity
Struggles are inevitable in life This mortal awareness can either be keenly felt and suffered or siezed through the transcendental consciousness and thus suborned Attraction and aversion generate these tensions Cutting the Gordian knot of this tension is the remedy and the means is awareness that transcends tensions Where this equanimity is born, there is born the transcendental awareness The culmination of equnimity is the culmination of transcendental awareness At this stage equanimity and freedom of attraction-aversion overlap The means becomes the end In the material world the duality continues but these dual images are obliterated from consciousness Equanimity par excellence, freed of all clashes, emerges as an ineffable perfect feeling Neither clash remains nor equanimity Pure consciousness alone remains
J
