46 Experiment with Balance
Keep an eye on balancing your energy and your mental posture. Check in with yourself. Ask yourself if you are striving or becoming lazy. Try to notice if any mental or physical patterns are beginning to become predominant. If they are, try to bring careful non-judgemental sati-sampajañña to the situation and apply whatever your wisdom calls you to do. Then assess the results. Example: Laziness seems to arise with frequent thoughts about how difficult this is or how I might not sit the next scheduled sit. Bring attention, cultivate some investigation, allow some energy/effort to seep in, and make a determination to sit.
Meditation practice deepens and enlightenment has the potential to arise when balance of the Five Spiritual faculties (indriya-samatta) is achieved. The fulcrum of both wisdom and compassion is balance in one’s own mind.
Spiritual Faculties: (indriya) and Five spiritual faculties (indriya-samatta): 1. ‘Equilibrium, Balance, or Harmony of the Faculties,’ relates to the five spiritual faculties: Faith, Energy, Mindfulness, Concentration, and Wisdom. 2. The spiritual faculties are more important to the practice of vipassanā than this definition seems to imply. Balance of the mind/heart opens oneself to enlightenment. The practice of meditation is a constant process of refining of our intuitive abilities through the understanding of the Three Characteristics and only when the spiritual faculties are balanced can this occur. allan cooper 3. SN 48.10. Indriya-vibhanga Sutta: Analysis of the Mental Faculties. 4. Buddhist Dictionary; indriya-samatta. p. 67.
Abbreviations in footnotes: AN: Aṅguttara Nikāya, DN: Dingha Nikāya, MN: Majjhima Nikāya, SN: Saṃyutta Nikāya
