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Hi, this is Margaret Meloni, and welcome to the Death Dhamma Podcast. In a series I used to read, occasionally one character would say to the other, may you live in interesting times. It was understood that this was a curse where interesting times meant chaos and difficulty. Well, we do live in interesting times. I mean, don't we always? So this season, together, we will explore equanimity and chaos, recognizing that many aspects of life are beyond our control. Let's find a sense of balance and peace amid external chaos. Welcome back. Last time, we contemplated the Loka Vipati Sutta and the eight vicissitudes, or the eight worldly conditions. You remember. Gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain. Now, some also refer to these as the winds, because like the wind, they are inconstant and they blow through all of our lives. I kind of appreciate that comparison to the wind. We will all experience gain and loss, status and disgrace, censure and praise, pleasure and pain. In fact, the Buddha experienced these winds too. We touched on this last time. But these winds or conditions can lead us to suffering as we try to hang on to gain and to avoid loss, or climb to a certain status and stay away from disgrace. Remember, the Loka Vipati Sutta, which is Anginakara 8.6, teaches us gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure and pain. These conditions among human beings are inconstant, impermanent, and subject to change. Gain and loss are the winds of fortune. We might be taught to look for gain and to keep gaining, and that, you know, Gaining and obtaining, I'll say, is a goal. But gain is temporary and not some kind of ultimate victory. And loss is an important teacher. Not a misfortune necessarily, but a guide to understanding impermanence. We cannot avoid loss. To do so is to be coming from a place of aversion. We can observe the truth behind what is left when you think all has been lost. The truth of the teachings, the real Dharma, is not lost. In fact, it is what helps us face the challenges along the way. It also tempers the highs along the way. Now, praise and blame, these are the winds of ego. Praise can feel nice, right? It's good to be appreciated, to be admired. Can you accept praise without taking it too seriously? That's the challenge. Blame, rightly understood, becomes a teacher of patience, self inquiry and and humility. As when we can accept blame objectively, then we can look to see where is any of this true? Why is it upsetting us? Why is it upsetting us? In this Way, you know, again, that's that practice of patience and self inquiry and humility, right? Fame and disgrace. These are the winds of identity. Like praise, fame can feel good. It doesn't have to be the fame of a celebrity or an influencer or public figure. For most of us, fame is recognition, to be admired by friends or colleagues. To cling to this is to engage in creating a self and to live with the anxiety of losing our recognition. Disgrace reminds us that we are not that image that others hold of us. And actually, to fall from favor is a way of achieving freedom. You're no longer tied to that expectation that others have of you. The expectations that built your fame, that you feel like your fame is, you know, precariously perched upon pleasure and pain. These are the winds of the senses. Pleasure can be called the most subtle of the winds. There are things we experience every day that are pleasurable. Food, comfort, good company. These things bring us pleasure. We don't have to reject these things, just understand their place and the difference between appreciation and addiction. It's tempting to want to avoid pain, right? So aversion, of course. Yet pain plus mindfulness brings us to compassion. Experiencing pain opens our hearts to others. Every time I think of that, I'm always reminded of how when I was early on in my grieving process, one of my teachers prescribed to me, if you will, the. The meditation on other people who had lost families and other people who had lost their loved ones. And to open up in that way and to think about them and contemplate them. And that made my pain less about me. It was a way of opening my heart absolutely. And then there is equanimity, right? Equanimity. The heart of freedom. The deep stillness that remains undisturbed by all these winds. Not indifference, right? Spacious wisdom. I like that description. I did not come up with that myself. Spacious wisdom. A balanced mind that welcomes all experiences, not because we like those experiences. I really appreciate this thought. Not so welcoming an experience, not because I like it or want it, but because I understand them or the balanced mind understands them. As I know that I'm not quite there yet. This statement is really a balanced mind that welcomes all experiences not because it likes them, but because it understands them. The Buddha kept balance when slandered by others by saying, if you know this to be true, then do what you think is right. So in other words, when people would try to blame him, maybe try to put him in a place of disgrace, he would just say, if you know this is true, then do what you think is right. In other words, if you're positive, then act however you need to act. And you know he was coming from that you know he was undisturbed, undisturbed by the potential wind of disgrace or wind of blame. These winds are part of our story as human beings and part of our training. It's not our goal to avoid the winds. That is not possible. It is up to us to recognize the winds, to note them, feel them blowing past us, and understand where we are in relation to clinging and aversion and how these winds are shaping our practice, and to work towards that time when we can have that deep stillness and be undisturbed by the winds. You've been listening to the Death Dhamma podcast with your host, Margaret Meloni. Thank you so much for being here. Come find me on margaretmaloney.com M A R G A R E T M E L o n I.com and until we meet again. May you be well, may you be happy, may you be at ease, and may you be free from suffering. Bye for now.