hilitehead

“When we practice developing equanimity, sometimes it is helpful to use visualization. For example, you can imagine three different individuals in front of you: someone who is very close to you, someone you regard as an enemy and whom you dislike, and then someone who is completely neutral and to whom you feel indifferent. Then let your natural emotions and thoughts arise relation to these individuals. Once you are able to allow your natural feelings to arise, you will notice that towards the loved one you feel a sense of closeness and great attachment, towards the person you dislike you may feel hostility and a sense of distance, and that towards the individual who is neutral you will hardly feel any emotion at all.

At this point, try to reason with yourself. Why do I feel such different emotions towards these three individuals? Why do I feel so attached to my loved ones? You might begin to see that there are certain grounds for your attachment: the person is dear to you because he or she has done this and that for you, and so on. But if you then ask yourself whether these characteristics are permanent and whether the person will always be like this, then you may have to concede that this is not necessarily the case. Someone may be a friend today but turn into an enemy tomorrow. This is especially true from the Buddhist point of view, when we take many lifetimes into account – someone who is very close to you in this life may have been your enemy in another. From this perspective there are no real grounds for feeling such strong attachment.”