🪷Beyond Gain and Loss
In the Sutta Pitaka, the Buddha describes eight worldly conditions: gain and loss, status and disgrace, praise and blame, pleasure and pain (AN 8.6). The uninstructed mind is carried away by these winds. The instructed disciple reflects: “This is impermanent, conditioned, subject to change.” Seeing this, they do not exult over gain nor sorrow over loss. What is gained arises dependent on causes; when those causes fall away, loss appears. Neither is self, neither is truly owned. Guarding the mind, one does not cling to agreeable nor resist the disagreeable. When gain and loss are known as transient processes within experience, equanimity becomes possible, and the path is unobstructed.
