Suzuki Roshi has a famous quote that says “You are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement.”
On another front, coming from the Brahmavihara framework and Ajahn Geoff, equanimity is not the goal, but a stepping stone, and must be balanced with goodwill (metta) for it to be fruitful. He quoted (very skillfuly in my view) one Thai Ajahn saying that simply accepting things as they are is the equanimity of a cow.
To land the point. You went on a retreat being taken care of almost completely, and there you could train yourself in letting things be as they are. However, that retreat condition is not eternal, and will probably never be; hence the need to train in loving kindness—steering one’s actions towards the good—when confronted with the difficulty that inevitably comes. I would note that one particularly strong form of loving kindness is to allow for people to wake up to impermanence and not clinging; that being said, note that telling all people to “simply accept things as they are” might not be good.
There’s this powerful talk by Ajahn Geoff where he relates a story of a random person stopping him and asking “What should I do to be happy?”, he basically responded that he should train in ethics/virtue, and noted that if he answered “just let things be”, the person would have probably walked away at that instant (in anger?).
May goodwill and equanimity accompany you through your life.
Suzuki Roshi has a famous quote that says “You are perfect just as you are, and you could use a little improvement.”
On another front, coming from the Brahmavihara framework and Ajahn Geoff, equanimity is not the goal, but a stepping stone, and must be balanced with goodwill (metta) for it to be fruitful. He quoted (very skillfuly in my view) one Thai Ajahn saying that simply accepting things as they are is the equanimity of a cow.
To land the point. You went on a retreat being taken care of almost completely, and there you could train yourself in letting things be as they are. However, that retreat condition is not eternal, and will probably never be; hence the need to train in loving kindness—steering one’s actions towards the good—when confronted with the difficulty that inevitably comes. I would note that one particularly strong form of loving kindness is to allow for people to wake up to impermanence and not clinging; that being said, note that telling all people to “simply accept things as they are” might not be good.
There’s this powerful talk by Ajahn Geoff where he relates a story of a random person stopping him and asking “What should I do to be happy?”, he basically responded that he should train in ethics/virtue, and noted that if he answered “just let things be”, the person would have probably walked away at that instant (in anger?).
May goodwill and equanimity accompany you through your life.