Shugen Roshi on Equanimity, Emotions, and Walking Meditation

About This Resource

Summary This video recording (1hr) is of Shugen Roshi's talk at the Middle Way School in January 2024. Shugen sat with students and parents to talk about impermanence, one of Middle Way Education’s core units of inquiry. He focussed on the importance of cultivating equanimity in the context of recognizing the impermanent, always-changing quality of all things. He also fielded questions from parents and students, who wanted to know things like “how did the Buddha have fun?”

Age Range Middle/Junior High School (ages 13-15), Primary/Elementary School (ages 5-12), Secondary/High School (ages 16-19)

Contributor Middle Way School

Topics Buddha, Emotions, equanimity, Impermanence

Details

Shugen Roshi (Geoffrey Arnold) speaks to MWS students on Equanimity, Emotions, and Walking Meditation!

So the Buddha said that everything we can see or hear, smell, taste, touch, or even think is impermanent… and that’s true of everything. That’s the way things are made. It has to do with how everything is kind of put together. In fact, he said everything that is put together is going to come apart. Everything that rises is going to fall. Everything that gathers in is going to disperse. When you hear that, does that sound like a good thing or a bad thing? Doesn’t that make you glad?