SuttaCentral
Good day, or night people. Here I come with a personal question: how can we develop equanimity in this capitalist world? How can we find a middle path when there’s constantly a promise of happiness if you buy x article or subscribe to y service?
If you ask me, I’m tired of navigating the web and finding adds like “get premium”, “get plus (or +)” “subscribe to pro”, and so on …
Looking forward to hear from you. Excuse me if I got to personal here.Blessings!
Hello 
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I believe it fundamentally boils down to right view. As much as you start seeing the world as an always shaking ground, with inherently no stability, you will develop “Nibbidā”, an emotion or sentiment I like to think of as turning away. But this emotion would lead to instability and madness in someone who has no other refuge to go to. But we do. We have the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha to “fall back” to. This is a stable refuge.
Adding to this, when you start living in a good way, making merit, being loving, you’ll be able to cultivate a sense of independent happiness, a sense of deep satisfaction that doesn’t rely on getting that premium subscription, having sex with that person, watching that movie show, because you learn that these are essentially super suffering and unstable anyway, and you turn towards the spiritual path, because here there is much more stability, much more satisfaction, much more happiness. The pleasure promised by the Buddha isn’t hollow and is much more long lasting and fullfilling, it’s awesome 
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But we will always fall back here and there, until we attain stream-winning. Best to be patient and diligent.
I’d like to share these verses from Acharya Buddharkkhita’s translation of the Dhammapada:
Also this from MN 129:-
Furthermore, when a fool is resting on a chair or a bed or on the ground, their past bad deeds—misconduct of body, speech, and mind—settle down upon them, rest down upon them, and lay down upon them. It is like the shadow of a great mountain peak in the evening as it settles down, rests down, and lays down upon the earth. In the same way, when a fool is resting on a chair or a bed or on the ground, their past bad deeds—misconduct of body, speech, and mind—settle down upon them, rest down upon them, and lay down upon them. Then that fool thinks, ‘Alas, I haven’t done good and skillful things that keep me safe. And I have done bad things, violence and sin. When I depart, I’ll go to the place where people who’ve done such things go.’ They sorrow and wail and lament, beating their breasts and falling into confusion. This is the third kind of suffering and sadness that a fool experiences in this very life.
Furthermore, when an astute person is resting on a chair or a bed or on the ground, their past good deeds—good conduct of body, speech, and mind—settle down upon them, rest down upon them, and lay down upon them. It is like the shadow of a great mountain peak in the evening as it settles down, rests down, and lays down upon the earth. In the same way, when an astute person is resting on a chair or a bed or on the ground, their past good deeds—good conduct of body, speech, and mind—settle down upon them, rest down upon them, and lay down upon them. Then that astute person thinks, ‘Well, I haven’t done bad things, violence and sin. And I have done good and skillful deeds that keep me safe. When I pass away, I’ll go to the place where people who’ve done such things go.’ So they don’t sorrow and wail and lament, beating their breast and falling into confusion. This is the third kind of pleasure and happiness that an astute person experiences in this very life.
Bit more simpler advice would be to restrict your internet usage! The oldies might be right when they said phones are the problem.
Best of luck!
Good day my friend. Thank you so much for your observation; now there’s something new to reflect.
May you have a nice week!
Hi,
I’d offer that it can be useful to expand the question to how we can develop and abide in equanimity in any world of conditions.
What about equanimity in the world of old age, illness, and death, (SN56.11)?
Or when the physical body is breaking down, (SN22.1)?
The Buddha offers a wonderful and direct teaching regarding this:
“‘Though my body is ailing, my mind will be healthy.’‘āturakāyassa me sato cittaṁ anāturaṁ bhavissatī’ti. That’s how you should train. Evañhi te, gahapati, sikkhitabban”ti.
I think this is an incredible line. We can’t control outside events so much, but we can choose to practice the N8FP that leads to deeper and deeper equanimity, eventually in all circumstances. Good news!
In the rest of this sutta, the Buddha then offers practical teachings on this.
We gradually come to see all conditions as fundamentally unreliable and develop nibbidā, as the mind turns away from craving and delusion towards real equanimity and freedom from dukkha and all conditions.
It’s taken years (possibly centuries) to figure out a personally suitable way to navigate capitalism while maintaining equanimity. There was a lot of trial, error, and practice. In my case, I found things that brought satisfaction and pleasure (dhamma, literature, walks, relationships, sex, etc) outside the bustle of work and daily life. I trained myself to see work and money as only a means to greater ends, not an end in itself. This helped me maintain detachment from the system.
I use a flip phone. It has done wonders for my practice in the last two years.
Advertising, mass media, etc, are all designed to trigger and reinforce patterns of papañca. Mindfulness is helpful because it allows us to intercept the subvert messages and images that would otherwise affect our minds.
It’s not strictly Buddhist, but Guy Debord’s Society of The Spectacle is a wonderful and succinct treatise on the nature of the capitalist spectacle. It put into words ideas that I had felt for months but did not know how to express.
