Equanimity & The Eight Worldly Winds

Dr. Cheryl Fraser covers the concept of Equanimity and how it applies to the Eight Worldly Winds as the Buddha taught. The aspects in which the mind can flail from thing to thing in life and how to add ballast that minimizes these winds.

Transcript

For the sake of all beings,

Wisdom,

Compassion,

And non-clinging awareness.

So tonight I'm going to continue on with the theme of the seven factors of awakening,

Focusing on the seventh factor of equanimity.

I think probably most of you have more of a natural understanding of the first six factors.

You've all been practicing mindfulness in your own ways for quite a long time.

Informal practice and even being mindful of your mind states or your behaviors.

Not necessarily your shoes out in the rain,

But general mindfulness.

The factor of curiosity or investigation is one that you're very familiar with in other ways in your life.

Your hobbies,

Your work life,

Things you become passionate about or interested in reading about or studying.

So the idea of applying investigation or curiosity I think is very familiar to most of us as well.

This idea of energy or focus or diligence or determination.

Again you apply that in many other areas of your life,

Personal and professional,

Hobby and sport.

So that one makes quite a lot of sense to us I think.

Mindfulness,

Investigation or curiosity,

Effort or determination,

And bringing some pleasure or interest or joy to what you're doing.

I think that feels pretty familiar as well.

As does then turning towards some of the calming factors of peacefulness or tranquility.

You have experience of that in your meditation and in your life at times.

And concentration.

When you're working,

When you're writing something,

When you're doing a tricky bit of business around the house or in your craft or in your livelihood,

You know how to concentrate.

But this seventh factor of equanimity is one that is a little less familiar I think in a regular way.

So I want to expand on that for tonight's talk.

And I'll quote from a few wise people along the way,

Maybe read a poem or two.

And the first wise teaching is from Dolly Parton.

And Dolly says,

If you want the rainbow you got to put up with the rain.

If you want the rainbow you got to put up with the rain.

It's actually a lovely statement of equanimity,

This quality of being with what is.

We don't get to cherry pick our experiences.

We try.

We certainly try to gravitate toward the pleasurable and pleasant and wanted experiences.

And we certainly try to avoid or gravitate away from the unpleasant or unwanted or nasty or difficult experiences.

But we're not successful.

We can be a little bit successful and that's good.

You can cultivate wholesome living situations and friends.

You can try to take reasonable good care of your body and your mind and that will help a bit.

You can try to avoid obvious pitfalls and negativities and situations that have led to harm several times and maybe we wake up and realize that's not wholesome for us.

But we can't have rainbows without rain.

We can't have love without loss.

Somebody dies before the other one most of the time.

We can't have food without hunger at times and so on and so forth.

So equanimity.

If you want the rainbow you got to put up with the rain.

I want to teach equanimity tonight in the context of another Dharma teaching of the Buddha of the four worldly concerns,

Sometimes called the four worldly winds.

And I want to remind those of us in the Pacific Northwest anyway of the great storm of 2018.

December 18th I think it was.

2018.

I was seeing patients that day and the power went out and I was seeing patients by candlelight which was actually kind of groovy.

The very few that could make their way to me.

And I knew it was a pretty bad storm by our limited standards.

We don't have many storms here come on.

But you know no hurricanes,

No gigantic ice storms like in other places on the continent.

But for us it was a big deal.

And I knew it was a big deal that the winds of change had blown a lot of trouble into people's lives when I had one of my patients.

Good old Redneck.

I love Rednecks.

I'm born from one.

This is not a dig.

Meaning he's a regular guy that works hard with a big-ass truck.

And he called me and said so I'm trying to get to my appointment but Herd Road is closed.

There's trees all down so I'm gonna go the other way.

I'll be a little late.

Phone rings again and get another message.

So I tried going through Halem Road.

There's a tree down.

It's flooded.

Can't get through.

I'm gonna be a little late.

I'm like dang if he can't make it it must be chaos out there.

Because this is a guy that would have made it almost come hell or high water but could not broach the storm of 2018-2019.

And so winds come.

They blow things around.

They create chaos sometimes.

They knock down trees.

They knock out power lines.

We could all share our stories.

The local folks here.

My home was without power for three days which wasn't a big deal.

But I had friends who had no power for seven days.

And it was right before Christmas right.

So people's food was going you know rotten out of the freezer in the fridge and the ferries were all cancelled.

We were meant to leave the next day and go to the mainland to see my partner's parents.

We had to cancel that trip.

No big deal.

That's the thing.

For us it was no big deal because we were in pretty good mental states at the time and and lucky for us the trees didn't fall on anything important like the cat or the dog or our heads or the roof.

So it was just an amusing somewhat minor inconvenience.

But for other people I have a lot of patients and friends where trees came down on their fence lines and on their houses and what not.

No loss of life or injury and folks I knew.

But there was one death in Duncan from a tree falling on an encampment of some homeless persons.

Extremely sad.

Very sad.

The winds have changed.

Sometimes they blow things we like like a cool breeze on a too hot day.

Sometimes they blow chaos and change that we don't want.

And I observed that night for a long strict curious reason that doesn't matter very much but I had family members who were trying to get to Vancouver that day to see a Canucks game that if these tickets had been bought as a gift and you know months before by my little sister for my father they spent four or five hours at the ferry terminal being told the next one's gonna sail the next one's gonna sail and none of them sailed.

So they came home and by then the TransCanada from Nanaimo to Duncan was take about three four hours because all the lights were out and it was four-way stops on the highway and they were hungry and tired and dismayed and we decided to come to the rescue and my partner went into town to see if he could get a spot to eat at one of the only places that had power in Duncan which was the little cluster at Boston Pizza and Wendy's and that little cluster had power right next to it was all black.

Most of the town was black that night.

So we get there and there are I don't know hundreds of cars I guess around there and about a line about 30 or 40 people long of cars through the Wendy's drive-thru because there you know nothing was open the grocery stores were all shut the power was out and big line at Boston Pizza but my partner took one for the team and stood in line for a while so that when they got there and I got there we had a table in a rather busy restaurant and it was really interesting to watch the mind states whoo-wee of the people who had to wait an hour for a table because the entire Cowichan Valley was pretty much without power.

You'd think that the world was ending the negativity from some beings others were lovely and gracious and others were just tired but some of the negativity the hostility the self importance of what do you mean there's an hour long wait well use your brain dude look around of course there's a wait you're not special I'm not special none of us are special the winds blew some things in and it changed things could we have equanimity could we be with things as they were long waits long lines lots of traffic because every other being pretty much wants what we want to be warm to have food to be safe and to get home and when we forget that we're not special we lose equanimity when we think we're special and we want what we want and we don't want what we don't want these winds of change these eight worldly winds yes I'm going to list them in a moment blow us about like an untethered boat on the ocean just being blown randomly smashed on the rocks sent out to sea and eventually potentially sunk equanimity can be thought of in that analogy as a terrific flexible anchor line absolutely unbreakable to the absolute bowels of the earth up to that boat the boat here is your mind and no matter how bad the storm storms and the winds go and the waves crash your boat may be smacked about but it is unshakable at base it won't be torn free it won't be thrown on the rocks it may be rocked or worse but it will remain floating and come back to center that's a good analogy for the mind of equanimity when it's being buffeted by the eight worldly winds the eight worldly winds are taught in pairs as the sort of the desired side and the undesired side the side we want the side we don't want and I'll list them to begin and then I'll speak a little bit about each pair there's sometimes called the four hopes and the four fears and when we're in hope or fear we are suffering we're wanting hoping for something we don't have or hoping this good thing will stay or we're in fear we might lose it and it might go away or we're in fear something bad might come so the first pair is translated as pleasure or pain sometimes translated as happiness versus suffering so this first pair pleasure versus pain or happiness versus suffering I'll talk a little bit about each of these but let me list them first the second pair the third and fourth of the eight is fame versus insignificance fame versus insignificant sometimes translated as fame or disrepute the third pair is praise versus blame praise and blame and the fourth pair of these eight is gain and loss gain and loss so let's look a little bit about them and attempt to relate it to how equanimity can help us navigate these inevitable winds of change that will blow through our life sometimes you know what do they say an ill will blows no good but sometimes a good wind can bring great joy and great happiness the difficulties in when we're jumping after the good winds and fleeing from the bad winds we can never have any peace we can never have any release from suffering so pleasure pain or happiness versus suffering this one I think is fairly apparent to us happiness is something we all want is even in the U.

S.

Is that the constitution the pursuit of happiness dumbest vow ever think about it it was well intentioned I would think very well intentioned life liberty and the pursuit of happiness if you're pursuing happiness you're suffering it's fundamental buddhadharma if you're reaching for happiness if you're seeking happiness if you're wanting happiness I do this because it's a leaning forward to please can I pursue if it's a life liberty and the acceptance of happiness and unhappiness would be a brilliant statement so it's very close just needs a little tiny edit happiness we want we're not fools we can seek it but if we are seeking happiness and fearing suffering seeking pleasure and fearing pain we're very very insecure so let's say something happy is happening for us we're in a good love affair we've had a baby we've got a new kitten we've just been given a promotion or won a job we want had a good day at work our house we painted and we love the color something that feels like a temporary state of happiness we're good we're happy that's beautiful nowhere does the buddha say don't be happy what he says is don't cling to the happiness except that by the first noble truth of impermanence happiness will come and go these things will come and go and that's okay that would be the equanimity part it's okay so let's say that happy thing is happening the love affair the kitten or puppy or a cup of perfect hot chocolate if we can simply enjoy the happiness that's here we're good but often there's this little needle this little poke this little thorn of I hope it stays but it's not a good thing even with a cup of hot chocolate maybe I'm the only one but if it's a really good cup of hot chocolate and it's a small cup espresso or tea or whatever maybe wine if that's your thing and you're about halfway through to going to be this little tiny thorn of oh it's so good it's going to be gone soon little tiny want of wanting little tiny pinprick in the rows of your happiness and certainly with being in a love affair or having a job you really want or a position you really want there can also be that little fear that will go away they'll leave me or they'll die look at cancer or that they'll stop being young and pretty or whatever one is afraid of and so happiness can have a thorn in it if we're also clinging or wanting or insecure about being okay with the flip side if we're okay with the flip side being okay with it is equanimity doesn't mean we like it doesn't mean we like pain or suffering but if we're sort of okay with it we can accept it we're not in fear fear of the change fear of the pain coming once we have happiness fear can arise because we fear losing it and when suffering and or pain arises physical pain emotional pain the pain of loss or other things if we hope for it to be over we want it to be gone it generally increases the pain right this heartbreak this aching body this argument and disconnect with a dear friend i just wanted to be better i just i don't want it to be like this often that increases the sense of suffering these are two of the winds that blow us about if we let them if we're an untethered boat if we're a mind without ballast or training we'll be just high and then smash and then okay and then terrible and super happy and then depressed and most of us have experienced variations of what i just said there feeling like it's just up to those outer circumstances whether i'm okay or not please let it be good winds today that's a very vulnerable place to place your well-being on the very first evening i talked a little bit about why be in retreat and that the more we try to fiddle the outer to keep safe it won't really work same idea we're fiddling the outer to you know try to keep the happy stuff and try to avoid the the painful stuff instead what if we train the mind the emotions the heart the being to accept with some grace and some equanimity the happy winds and the sad winds the pleasurable winds and the painful winds that doesn't mean you give up or are passive it means you face the truth that some winds are really tough and then that may give you the strength to bear it with grace until the wind shifts and something else comes along there's a um it's quoted in different places in different ways so i don't know the actual origin of this story a zen story a buddha story a something else story but it's the story of the farmer and it's an old farmer in somewhere other than here land far away and he has a horse and he has a little farm and he's quite poor and he uses the horse to till his field and one day the horse comes up lame and he can't till his field so he'll have to do backbreaking work on his own and he might not get his crops in on time and his neighbors come over as nosy neighbors do and they say oh what bad luck what bad luck your horse is lame you can't get your crops in in time not offering to help mind you and he says good luck bad luck who knows they're a bit puzzled by that and they go away the next day he goes to find his horse and his horse is actually broken out of the paddock and is gone neighbors come oh no bad luck bad luck he says good luck bad luck who knows the next day the horse comes back bringing with it two wild strong horses the neighbors come over and they say this is terrific you're so lucky you've got these two beautiful strong horses to train now good luck for you my friend good luck and he says good luck bad luck who knows then the next day his son is coming to train the new horses and work with them and tame them and he's he's gets on one's back and he's bucked off and he breaks his leg rather badly the nosy neighbors come over and say oh this is terrible luck such bad luck your son is injured he can't help you now it will take him a long time to heal farmer says you know it good luck bad luck who knows the next day the mercenary army comes through for a not noble civil war and they're taking all able-bodied young men from all the farms and they can't take his son because his son's laid up with the broken leg and the neighbors come rejoicing and say such good luck good luck bad luck who knows that's equanimity who knows maybe it is maybe it isn't it is what it is the horse is lame the horse is gone the horse is back with two able-bodied horses my son is hurt my son doesn't go to fight in an unjust war where he's likely to die we don't know what the outcome will be and when we react to the event as good luck or bad luck we don't know who knows it's a very good teaching that little story the second pair fame versus insignificance how much do each of us suffer from this some of us more some of us less but this teaching relates also to the teaching of self referencing self referencing is a phrase used in dharma that's really about our image of who we are how much we filter our experience through me hint most of us a lot and how much according to the buddha our kind of addiction and conviction of this self that is sherald that's a certain way that i want to feel a certain way and be perceived a certain way is one of the major roots of our suffering so self referencing can be as simple as um you're walking with a friend and you notice a beautiful cherry blossom tree and you say oh look at the beautiful tree and your friend says oh i love cherry blossom trees they're my favorite kind that's a perfectly innocent sentence one that i've said and you've said many many many times someone says oh i got a box full of lobster for my friend back easy and say oh i love lobster but start noticing perhaps how much you do that how much you take an experience and not surprisingly filter it through your experience self referencing self referencing so you look at this bell and you think oh that's a lot like my bell or i'd like a bell like that or i could never make a bell like that please understand there's nothing wrong or bad about you that that's a natural tendency what do we train children with whose nose is that it's your nose we train them from pre-verbal my nose my ears my mummy my bell can have my bell we're trained we're trained we're trained me mine me mine me mine and this can really lead to a tremendous amount of suffering so this second worldly wind pair fame versus insignificance plays on our ego reflection of who we are and how much pain and agony we can have when we're fallen into disrepute and how much pleasure and pumped up feeling we can feel when we're seen with fame very simply someone says you're the best insert your profession or hobby here you're the best hockey player on the team you're the best Dharma teacher ever you're the best mom you're the best cook and in a way that's playing to our fame and most of us enjoy if it's a sincere compliment it's not manipulative we enjoy that it feels nice nothing wrong with that nothing wrong if we hold it gently like sand in an open hand and we let it run through our hand so if it's a sincere if it's a sincere compliment about something we've strived to do well thank you move on but how many people including certain world leaders are desperately in need of feeling fame feeling pumped up feeling that they're important feeling that they're the best or whatever and what's the flip side of that dreadful profound agonizing insecurity or insignificance the translation again is fame versus insignificance or fame versus ill repute so you go one day from being considered oh i don't know let's say Oprah Winfrey of all people goes from one day from being revered by a great many people and considered to be a great leader and a great thinker and someone who does tremendous work for many underprivileged persons and really tries to bring great knowledge to people and then it turns out that she's got a puppy murdering farm in her backyard or something and in a day she goes you know to be hated and reviled right she's nothing like we thought she was she's a hypocrite she's horrible so it's a bit of a dumb example but from fame to disrepute that could happen to any of us at any moment at any moment goodness gracious at any moment a false rumor could take all of us down in terms of how we're perceived yeah absolutely absolutely i don't need to make up the ugly kind of false rumors you can think of them yourself that if it was you know put in the newspaper or bandied about your career could be over even it was entirely untrue from fame to disrepute that's a pretty insecure place to stand equanimity would say fame or disrepute i'm okay obviously we'd prefer not fame per se but being seen for our good qualities and people having gentle grounded appreciation for our good qualities would be the wholesome side of fame and we'd prefer people didn't for this example inaccurately think we were something other than we were and our reputation is in tatters as the phrase goes your reputation is in tatters whether you actually made mistakes and did do unskillful things the way we all do or whether they were fabricated or misunderstood how easily we can feel on top of the world or crushed to earth by the winds of this pair of fame versus insignificance and let's be serious we're in a culture that's more obsessed with fame than ever before i mean in the 1950s and 60s movie stardom and rock stardom was uh was quite a hysterical thing but there wasn't the social media and the instant gratification piece um i can't remember oh it was taylor swift the singer the young singer taylor swift pop singer she said how she has never asked for an autograph ever she's never asked for an autograph what she asked for can i get my picture with you right it's all selfies with the person we used to say hey you're someone who's accomplished that i admire can i have your autograph could i have sort of a you know this is lovely it's like wow i met bob dillon and he gave me an autograph that's cool uh you know a little piece of fame felt good but now it's all about me in the fame me in the fame who was oh it's an it's an actor called nick offerman he was on a show called parks and recreation that i didn't watch his wife is uh plays karen on will and grace there are two actors and i was listening to a interview with the two of them and he was talking about how his policy he's often approached in restaurants as anyone with some television fame tends to be and he has a policy if people ask him for a picture he says no and he says it very gracefully and very nicely he says no but i'd be happy to talk to you for a few minutes make a human connection like are you actually interested in connecting or do you just want a little self-referencing bit of fame well that was really wise because he didn't say it from a place of rejection or anger he's just like no actually i don't do photos but i'm happy to chat for a few minutes if you like and most people just kind of look gobsmacked and don't have anything to say because they're not there about him they're there about them here's me we're the famous person right so it's harder than ever i think uh the egos can be more fragile and more self self-referential just because of a cultural milieu of new media to say you know unless i show it to the world and make myself famous it doesn't count i mean for goodness sakes people i don't know make a burrito and they have to put it on social media look at the burrito i made don't care not because i'm mean because i don't care it's insignificant it's famous it's this it's that doesn't matter i care about the quality of your heart and your mind and i hope you enjoy the burrito and share it with all beings i don't need to see a picture of it no offense i'm not your facebook friend i'm almost nobody's facebook friend okay so fame versus insignificance and we can giggle but i hope we can also maybe a little uncomfortably turn this lens on ourselves and while you may not be running around getting tons of pictures with rock stars or whatever now there are exceptions richard gear roger daltry i'm getting a photo with those two but other than that nope can't be bothered we've all got our weaknesses we've all got our weaknesses but where are we too invested in our reputation including our close friends our family our neighbor you know what if there's a tiny innocent misunderstanding between say you and a neighbor a neighbor you don't know particularly well maybe when you moved into your apartment you were told you know slot 5a was yours for your car so you park and slot 5a and an irate person comes pounding on your door and says five a is my parking place get out of my place and you're like oh i'm really sorry landlord said it was five well it's not it's been mine for five years damn it and they run away and you're like oh no a lot of times people are very agitated because now this neighbor doesn't like me neighbor doesn't like their own mind neighbor doesn't like their own story neighbor wasn't able to hear the data of oh i was misinformed and of course i'll happily move my car ideally we can let that go and bless and release and gracefully send good thoughts to the neighbor but often we don't we're concerned oh no now they think i'm selfish or took their spot or a bad person so this one's a little uncomfortable sometimes to examine in ourself where are we in terms of our self-referencing our need to feel important significant there are healthy human needs for connection to be seen for who we are with a loving eye by people that we care about but when it gets to this leaning forward into needing to be seen a certain way we're in suffering and those winds will blow us back and forth back and forth there's another story of a female yogini in india on the path of awakening walking through and she has i don't know how to describe it but sort of like two bags that hang over her neck or across her shoulders that she can put things in and as she walks through the countryside she meets people who says you know you're so beautiful i so admire the work you're doing as as an awakening being you're such a what's the word inspiration and those are lovely compliments and for every compliment she picks up a white stone and puts it in one of the bags and then she runs into people who you know say negative things um you're foolish get out of my way what a stupid woman you are and for every negative thing she takes a black stone and puts it in the other bag and she moves gracefully through the world with equanimity and at the end of the night she empties both of her bags and she goes into a pile of black and white stones and begins again because they don't matter she doesn't need to carry them that's the message we don't need to carry these reflections of other people onto us we can go inside and know who we are and continue to improve our intentions our ethics our compassion and our wisdom and if something goes wrong we can go back and do it again and and if something negative is thrown at us what i try to do is take it look at it evaluate whether there's some truth and there's something i need to tune up or clean up learn if there's something to learn and move on i'm not always successful some stick some hurt but really it's just fame or disrepute it's just fame or insignificance i wrote an article i'm a writer and i write for several magazines and online magazines and on the area of love and relationship and sexuality and i was asked to write an article answering a question from a reader for a column for thrive global where readers send in questions about relationship and this person's question was uh essentially my wife uh has lost her attraction to me and she'd like to explore an open relationship i do not want an open relationship is my marriage over so i answered the question and i talked about uh open relationship and non-monogamy as a model that can work for a minority of people i quoted some statistics around four percent allegedly and said i philosophically have no problem with the concept of an open relationship in my clinical experience though and according to the data usually it's unsuccessful and it leads to a lot of pain and whatnot and given that you the person asking the question clearly don't want that here's some advice holy blowback holy holy sherell got eaten by the wolves by a minority of persons who are very advocating of the open marriage lifestyle which i am not philosophically or clinically opposed of which was actually like in the article but i got a lot of year down on open marriage and you're just you know heteronormative like hate hate like vicious attacks and all this in the comments on one of the things things and that hadn't happened before generally people like what i write um i was like all these people hate me and then the editor said uh because i wrote i said whoa lots of blowback there was tons of positive comments too but i said um people are really upset and he wrote back he says yeah we have a saying around the office that if you're in social media as a manager or an editor if you don't cry in the shower once a day you're not doing your job right i'm like all right then i think i feel better i think he's saying let it go people who say that stuff didn't even read the article they just read the headline which i didn't write by the way generally the editor writes the headline and it was very interesting to see that for like an hour i was quite consternated because there were really personal virulent attacks on me as like a bad person and what's more um the accusations weren't even what i think uh nor what i had written i actually written you know so it was a great experience of this kind of fame and disrepute you know and people saying oh great article so she's so clever from going you know she is evil and she'll burn in hell i'm like oh that's new so it was lovely because i got to kind of tune up that whole whoo either don't read the comments or you know really have equanimity before you go in to take a look so we get these opportunities to practice they're everywhere whether you accidentally take your neighbor's parking place or write write an article answering a question that people get upset about there you go the editor just like wow we got more responses than we have to any of our other articles would you write another controversial one please i'm like okay controversy sells there you go the third pair praise and blame um similar to fame and insignificance fame and insignificance is more about our reputation and our self view or how we're viewed praise and blame is a little more personal and simple like when people give you a compliment or give you a criticism how does that hit us um it's a dangerous one if we're really susceptible to praise and a lot of us are uh we may or may not have got a lot of validation even from terrific parents growing up it may not have been a family where you were told well done bobby great job sue it may have just been you know i want them to get full of themselves right kind of a view that used to be around um so some people grow up with kind of a hole in their psyche around really being hungry for praise for acknowledgement just to be seen i don't mean silly or effusive praise i mean the simplicity of your boss your boss occasionally saying hey nice job on the report well done regular kind of pleasant praise but when we're really susceptible to it who suffering suffering suffering and what's more we can kind of be preyed upon by sales jobs or conmen or you know this deal is just for you because you're so special you're one of the few who could ever manage to actually do this thing we're like oh me me oh of course here's my ten thousand dollars so praise and blame are good to also evaluate the winds of praise blowing our way the winds of blame or criticism or negativity blowing our way equanimity helps us stay more stable in those wins and if it's sincere as previously mentioned sincere compliments or acknowledgement you know i really appreciate the extra effort you put in thank you for staying that hour over time really appreciate it lovely let it be in and flow out without clinging that's beautiful that's that's the compassion loving kindness but when we seek or want or hanging on for or wounded if the praise isn't forthcoming and a wound when the criticism is forthcoming then we're in a very fragile state around our non-self self stability and the ability to go oh okay thank you saying thank you to criticism is an interesting practice you're really oh thank you for the feedback i'll consider that that's helpful that's an interesting practice and if the mind's like yeah but they're full of nonsense and i know that this is true isn't true it might not be true and they might be full of nonsense but still it's a chance to practice with your mind the buddha says that your enemy is your greatest teacher right so the person who comes at you throwing out whatever they're throwing out it gives us a chance to work with our mind with does aversion arrive oh does anger arrive oh does collapsing you know sort of grief pity arise can we say whoo this is tough equanimity self-compassion kindness and then to a sort of a an accountability of self is there anything i can learn from this accusation or criticism sometimes we'll say no i don't think so i don't think there's a validity to what was thrown my way that's more about that person's mind state than an accurate reflection of what i did or thought so i'll let it go praise and blame gain and loss this in particular we can relate to the gain and loss of material possessions it's a good way to work with this one that the winds of change can blow gain our way some financial gain some windfalls or excellent rewards to your business development or a bonus at work nice things beautiful clothes a car you like all that good stuff and then loss can happen i mentioned i think last night about being with my friend two years ago in their house and all the houses around them burnt to the ground boom they're good everything i had my suitcase was in there and i'd been traveling and working and teaching some big events so i had all my you know kind of and i have very few kind of a darma hippie but i have a few nice clothes that i use when i'm on stage at big events so all my you know my good clothes my good makeup my good clothes my good my you know my good clothes my good makeup which i rarely rarely wear but when i'm on stage i do my good shoes you know all my all my like special stuff was in that suitcase that got burned up oh well big deal her entire house and every single thing she owned got burned up and puts it all in perspective gain and loss gain and loss gain and loss i still two years later when i was uh putting some things in a bag for this retreat my fabulous fashionable wardrobe i was looking for a certain yoga top i really like to wear on retreats because it's comfortable and it's good for the belly couldn't find i'm like oh yeah must have got burned up two years later still find gain and loss little things right and it can hurt if we let it when we lose things i'm talking about inanimate things at the moment this of course applies to other things too but things come things go things get broken impermanence is real nothing lasts forever a great practice of renunciation to kind of help shake up our attachment to objects our fear of loss is to give some of your favorite stuff away right next time you're going through and culling the clothes in your closet to pass on to uh charitable cause take one piece you really really like and send that as well it's a really great practice it's not easy i've done it like oh no not the not the pink leather jacket i love the pink leather jacket it had zebra lining now i'm the only one who thinks that's a great jacket but i f-ing love that jacket but i gave it away because i was practicing renunciation so i hope someone was going to go to the thrift store and go oh this is really cool and different than what one can use again here yay it's just a fun interesting way to play with the mind just give away things you like not just the things you're tired of i know it's such an unusual concept and when things are damaged or broken um can you have equanimity about that i went out to my vehicle i have no particular attachment to my vehicle it's useful to drive dogs around basically but uh it was um a bit muddy and dirty and i hadn't noticed that um on the passenger side because i don't usually get in the passenger side uh someone sometime in the last couple weeks had keyed my car right from nose to stern it's got an okay paint job it's you know not a fancy car at all and i was like oh did i drive past a really nasty thorn bush i guess so and then i looked again and it's just anyway due to the body shop said oh no that was deliberate and i was like oh it like bothered me like 0.

0000001 it was just an observation of oh okay there's huge scratches in the paint of the car i don't really care that was a nice feeling it was a nice feeling of equanimity around the loss of a of a paint job i guess uh there are other things that would have distressed me quite a bit you know were i to lose this necklace i'd be more affected because it has all sorts of significance to me i'd be disappointed i wouldn't be like all super torn up about it but i'd be more dismayed than the car thing each of us has our things that we're more attached to they have emotional significance sometimes they have monetary significance we worked really hard for them or they're precious we brought them from a trip but they're just things gain and loss gain and loss the winds of gain and loss will come and go if your house is all burned down when we're here i hope very much they don't and all of your stuff is gone you're okay and you're say all the humans and pets got out ultimately it's just stuff ultimately things come and things go but how much anxiety do we have about our stuff and i don't just mean our stuff but like our mortgage and our home and our security and all these other impermanent things so much anxiety and thinking and planning and i'm not saying don't have stuff and i'm certainly not saying don't have beautiful supportive stuff that can be lovely for the states of mind to enjoy a beautiful comfortable surrounding just don't cling to it if it disappears or it makes sense to sell everything or move to something tiny because you can meditate more or be of more service to the world then great it's just stuff you could let it go there's a study i like to mention in terms of our fear of not having enough stuff and it's a study that was done i think out of harvard but i can't recall i'd have to check to make sure that's a that's an accurate reference and they studied millionaires of multimillionaires and billionaires and they asked them questions trying to find out you know does money make you happy essentially and what they found that across the board the millionaires multimillionaires and billionaires had two main worries one was that their children would be kind of messed up growing up very very very wealthy these were generally self-made millionaires and billionaires so they knew the difference between poverty and working hard and and and creating wealth and they were concerned you know my kids might they might not end up okay because they were born into incredible privilege and their other worry was that they didn't have enough money and across the board they they were asked you know what would it take for you to feel comfortable for you to not feel insecure for you to feel more confident and across the board the millionaires the multimillionaires and the billionaires all said if we just had 10 more then we'd relax so clearly that doesn't work right but it's a beautiful example whether you make 20,

000 a year or 20 million a year if I just had 10 percent more and what the actual happiness data indicates is that for a family of four in the U.

S.

This is a bit of an older study so the numbers may be a bit different now but if a family of four in the U.

S.

In a regular midwestern not very expensive place not in san francisco or manhattan or something if they had approximately 45,

000 a year enough that they could pay for housing or a good rental they had food for their kids and transportation more money than that didn't increase happiness right if your basic needs were somewhat taken care of and you didn't have to worry about how you're going to feed your children and yourself or that you'd be evicted at any minute extra money didn't make much difference but we don't really believe that I can't tell you how many students have heard that and said I'm willing to try that out I think I'd be okay with just the first million and I wouldn't need 10 percent more fair enough fair enough but it plays with our ideas of gain and loss and this illusory idea well this idea of the illusory security we would have if we had more money more money could be useful but it's not going to make you feel happy all the time or safe all the time there's a writer whose name I may mispronounce he wrote zorba the greek and other books it's nicholas casinakis casinakis or some such lovely greek name and on his tombstone he's dead by the way on his tombstone what he had engraved was no hope no fear free that's equanimity no hope no fear free if we're not caught in hope and wanting clinging if we're not caught in aversion and pushing away and fear we're free we're free of suffering I don't think he was a buddhadharma person he's just a wise person who chose a very good quote now here's the trick I don't want you to have to be dead to be without the hope or the fear this is what we cultivate in this life in this body in this mind now with the cultivation of equanimity when we're in hope can we gently attempt to loosen our leaning into hope and just say even if that doesn't happen things will be okay when we're in fear what if what if what if we're in fear what if we're in fear what if we're in fear what if what if what if the lump's malignant can we say even if that happens we'll figure out what to do about it even if the life is shortened if the lump is malignant we'll figure out how to deal with that that's the practical outcome of equanimity no matter what's happening we'll figure it out no matter what's happening we'll be okay until we're not dead pretty great to live our life that way fearless fearless Pema Chodron the beautiful teacher she says to cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion before it hardens into grasping or negativity i'll repeat that to cultivate equanimity we practice catching ourselves when we feel attraction or aversion before it hardens into grasping or negativity so if we can practice noticing that the more minor tendency of mind towards attraction or hope or the tendency towards she's saying the language she's using attraction or aversion so attraction is that hope that wanting aversion is that fear that not wanting but just the subtle tendency if we could catch it sort of gentle it out sort of calm it down sort of let it go before it turns into she says hardens into grasping or negativity that's the cultivation of equanimity so the tendency to i would like that hey it's okay we're all right without it too maybe it will come and maybe it won't good luck bad luck who knows so this is quality in your meditation you can track the mind when it starts to want something you want the teacher to ring the bell you want this great state of meditation to last right a few of you have reported that very common experience that oh i'm actually feeling really good in the meditation and then this little bit of clinging hope voice comes in wow this is great i hope it lasts right that's when there's a little bit of that leaning into hope and if you just go okay whether it lasts or not here we are that can help the meditation deepen when you move out of the hope or the fear just a few more notes here one teacher i neglected to write the name down i apologize for that talks about certain practices to help us develop equanimity these are sort of life practices and they're interesting to contemplate one is cultivating a balanced emotion towards all living things cultivating a balanced emotion towards all living things what does that mean well at the fundamental level it means loving all beings as we talked a bit about last night the ones you like and the ones you don't like cultivating a balanced attitude towards all of them trying not to be overly attached to the people you love the pets you love that's tough really tough it's a great place to practice this doesn't mean you stop loving them cherishing them and celebrating them but can we loosen some of our scared fearful attachment right uh we were over on galliano island a week or so ago i spent three days with lama mark over there and we had some pet sitters in the house we have two dogs and two cats and for whatever reason the cats got a bit spooked for some reason and they stayed away for about a day and didn't come in to be fed or anything and this is extremely unusual for our one cat who are on a diet and didn't come in to be fed or anything and this is extremely unusual for our one cat who hardly ever leaves the house so i'm getting these texts from the house hitters saying you know jasmine we haven't seen her in a day and she's not she hasn't been in to eat and if jasmine's not in the house where she is 95 percent of the time my concern was she might it might have been hit on the road or something she did not tell the big guy because he couldn't have handled it so i just kept it to myself but got my little worry to myself so um turned out they were fine they got spooked maybe by the people's child or something and they were just kind of hanging out in the woods right by the house you know not coming in till we came home and they came home but it was so interesting to watch the attachment right i'm on galliano and this little worry a little pinprick gosh i hope she's okay and if she's not i'm gonna hold richard together and and and that clinging we have that over attachment to those we love and our fear that they won't be okay spoiler alert they won't be okay at some point none of us will we're all past so as difficult as it is you can at least take it as a study can i balance my emotion towards all living things uh this next one might be an easier one to practice and it follows from the um gain and loss of material things balanced emotion towards inanimate things so that would be the piece of uh your car gets wrecked or your house burns down or your stuff gets taken or lost or broken or whatever can you cultivate a balanced emotion towards that i mean it's kind of an interesting view that you know it's my whatever it's my necklace what does that even mean right i mean this sense of ownership i mean war and murder and duels and all that stuff are fought over my stuff and your stuff my side of the fence and your side of the fence it's a constructed fantasy this idea of ownership and in buddha dharma it doesn't make any sense so you can try to look at that and also maybe try not to overspend and get new stuff when your old stuff is perfectly fine i mean really people do we need every iteration of a bloody phone that comes out really it's so weird i have a perfectly good phone that's like two three years old now and people like oh you don't have the new bling bling bling i'm like no it rings i talk it work you know it's so funny though because even i i'm not super susceptible to to gadgetry uh i find them useful but i'm not like hung up on the new stuff i'm not sure whatever i don't know how to use that app anyway but even now the advertising kind of makes me feel like oh i must need that new one then right it's very powerful very powerful so can we build a balanced emotion towards inanimate things and then i i liked how this teacher put it this was a traditional teacher um a non-western teacher an asian teacher and and he wrote avoid people who go crazy for stuff and for things and for experiences and you know uh so if we're trying to be a little less attached to our stuff and you're with friends who are all about the bling and the new phone and the new car and you know your wardrobe's totally uncool sheryl or whatever um you might want to stay away from that from a little bit of a while you're strengthening your own mind around this so you because it's easy to be kind of influenced it's kind of what he meant the fourth practice he said choose friends who stay cool and that's actually would be probably a translation from the poly word sila which is one of the uh mean paramita or strengths or ethics and it translates as ethics or integrity and it translates as ethics or integrity sila and the literal translation of sila although we use it as ethics or integrity acting with an in an ethical manner the five precepts and whatnot the literal translation is um cooling out so it's like cooling out the fire of desire of wanting right oh i really want that stay hang out with friends who are cool like a lot of us if uh one of you was saying you know i totally need the new ferrari and i'm you know i'm gonna um you know never go on any more retreats because i need to pay off my ferrari loan probably if we were asked a lot of us in this room would say well it's cool that you like ferraris but really is that going to help you with what matters the most to you really when it comes down to it you know is the ferrari or the retreat right so it's helpful to have friends who have a similar view to us it's great to have friends that are very different no problem this speaks to when we're stronger in our view uh it's fine to be with people who have a different view uh there are extraordinary friends i have and family members who have no interest in the dharma at all and they think i'm a little cuckoo to go on three and four month retreats and take huge financial financial hits to study dharma and and be in retreat and teach retreat and one of them said recently i just don't understand they weren't being critical they were being puzzled i just don't understand why this is so important to you but then they said but clearly it is so it's great they didn't have the same view i think it was about me going to tibet last year which uh meant another couple months off work and it was quite an expensive trip to support the tibetan lamas we took back there and they were like i don't really get it but clearly it's important to you but if i were not so strong-minded and if i were surrounded by a lot of people said i don't think you should go it's too much money it's a bad time you know you should be working that might waver me right so that's what it means to choosing friends who stay cool you get t-shirts made stay cool and the fifth practice is to incline the mind towards balance and this is just a straightforward statement of cultivating equanimity the balanced mind that's not grabbing or pushing away it's a repetition of these concepts but in incline the mind towards balance so when you find the mind running away with you super hopeful and excited about something uh you know just just balance it a bit remain hopeful and excited in a more grounded way oh i really really look forward to that xyz good but if you're all like daydreaming and you're living three months in the future when that thing's going to happen to kind of get you through the slog of daily life till you get to that thing that's not so good it means you're missing the three months leading up to that trip or event or visit or something incline the mind toward balance a reminder equanimity is not a detached state uh the buddha says that a mind suffused with equanimity is radiant illuminated warm and happy it's not some sort of a loop distance uh most of you will know or know of anyway the uh wonderful now deceased singer uh well wonderful depending on your musical taste uh lennard cohen wonderful poet anyway well i guess depending on your poetry taste too he's not for everybody but uh lennard cohen as you may know was a very serious buddha dharma practitioner in the zen tradition he spent many many years and months in different times in deep deep zen retreat very structured very sort of fearsome retreat uh practice very stripped down a lot of meditation a lot of austerity and when i was very very early interested in the path 30 years ago or so i read some article with lennard cohen and um he was wearing sort of all gray zen robes and looking very dour lennard didn't have like a cheery looking face let's be honest and it was like and i thought that's what buddha dharma was partly about i thought it was essentially you know life is suffering and then you die which arguably is how the four noble truths are sometimes presented it's not accurate suffering yeah and joy beauty and awakening that part should get mentioned but i thought that the essential teaching was pleasure rejecting now in some cases that's taught that way we won't go into that right now but i i didn't understand that that's not equanimity that's my misunderstanding again and it's like you know you know avoid all pleasure to be frank i thought i don't want me none of that and i didn't pursue dharma for a while i don't want no avoid all pleasure i wanted freedom from suffering and my teachers many of your teachers and this humble being in my own way loved pleasure my teachers loved pleasure in a very non-attached way i can't claim that namjaroen pichet's home was filled with beautiful objects from travels he had cases of silks from india beautiful silks and tapestries and beautiful pottery from different travels and it was because he would have students over for class or for meals and sometimes he said bring out the silks and i didn't used to really quite know why other than we all thoroughly enjoyed looking at these beautiful objects touching these beautiful exquisite pieces of craft work and craftsmanship and weaving etc and i came to know and came to understand and lama marx home is very similar on galliano partly it's to help people contact positive qualities of mind you bring these beautiful objects and people get investigative and curious and pleasure and calm and they look and they're concentrated it's beauty when you're not attached to it you're not clinging to it it can really help warm the mind and heart and help lead students and beings to feel the qualities of mind that are possible so sometimes it's a little bit of a ploy to just build a length of work and get them ready because that's what made it possible so it's a very interesting uh exploration of beauty how about you know a single beautiful little object or a beautiful stone and really appreciate it but without clinging not like this stone makes me happy i need it i want it don't touch my stone dwight you know not that kind of thing it's just oh that's lovely a flower a hummingbird a blade of grass but appreciation a stone makes me happy i need it i want it don't touch my stone dwight you know not I have equanimity.

I don't care.

It's not equanimity,

That's negativity and aversion and nihilism.

So don't confuse the two.

Ah,

I think that's plenty for tonight,

But I do have a couple of little sayings I want to read you.

So I'm going to freak you all out now by bringing out a cell phone.

It's on airplane mode,

But it's where I keep a lot of notes of poems and quotes and things.

So this is from the Dhammapada and it's a quote of the Buddha where speaking about equanimity,

Maybe interpreted a little bit.

I'm not going to say he said these exact words.

The Buddha on equanimity.

As a solid mass of rock is not stirred by the wind,

So a sage is not moved by praise and blame.

As a deep lake is clear and undisturbed,

So a sage becomes clear upon hearing the Dharma.

Virtuous people always let go.

They don't prattle about pleasures and desires,

Touched by happiness and then by suffering.

The sage shows no signs of being elated or depressed.

That's smoothness of mind of equanimity.

So in a moment we'll sit for about ten minutes.

I'll close with another poem and then a dedication of the merit.

As per usual you can keep practicing as long as you wish.

Tomorrow the program will be similar to today,

At least in the morning until lunch.

So could I please have a volunteer to ring the bell for the 6.

30 sit?

So ringing the bell at,

Thank you Joshua Akari,

6.

25.

Good and loud.

Have fun with it.

Thank you.

And we'll be in for the silent sit and then moving yoga before breakfast.

So settling in,

Doing your pre-flight safety check.

Do it in 15-20 seconds.

Stretch up,

Drop back,

Gentle roll of those shoulders,

Checking in with the chin.

Adjust,

Let the belly go,

Settle into posture and a touch of a smile.

Allowing the talk to fade away.

Noticing the quality of the mind and the heart,

The energies may be ruffled a bit by the talk,

All the information.

As we think about our own gains and losses and pleasures and pains and fames and insignificance and praises and blames,

Rattle up some uncomfortable or pleasant feelings,

All of that's just fine.

Bring equanimity to it.

An acceptance and a stability,

A flexible stability of mind.

So when the winds blow like a strong flexible sapling,

The mind can bend one way and bend the other,

But it comes back to a graceful middle point,

Unperturbed.

So,

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

We can do it in 15-20 seconds.

A poem by Rumi.

The title is The Guest House.

The Guest House.

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy,

A depression,

A meanness.

Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

Still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought,

The shame,

The malice.

Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Jingle Jingle Dedication of the merit.

By the merit of this strengthening activity,

May there be a cessation of all the defilements,

Leaving in its place the seven factors of awakening.

Jingle May all beings be happy.

May all beings be free from suffering.

And may all beings dwell in perfect equanimity,

Impartial and loving toward all.

Jingle

Reviews

I love this ! Just kidding.😏
I want to listen again a few times! So much to welcome and so much to unpack in myself. Thank you.😊

Love her style of teaching. Insights were valuable. Love the closing meditation and dedication. Worth repeating as I work towards cultivating equanimity.

Lovely, clear and informative yet lighthearted at the same time. Gratitude!

Has increased my knowledge of equanimity, which I have been studying for some time now. Namaste 🙏🏼

Right place, right time. Insightful and very easy for me to digest!
Love Peace Growth Gratitude 💚✌🏻🌱🙏🏼

Thank you so much for sharing this talk. It was so helpful!

That was amazing! I now understand the meaning of equanimity as a result of this talk. Thank you so much!

Enjoyed listening this afternoon after having spent last weekend in retreat with you upisland 🕉🙏✨💫 amazing experience ☮ still feeling the glow 💚

Really interesting and insightful talk. Thank you Cheryl 💜x

Thank you for this wonderful teaching 🙏🕉❤️

Extremely insightful!! Thank you so much!

The most wonderful session thank you 🙏

May you all be well :) and find the loving in equinimity ☝️❤️🧡💚💜💙💗🥰💤😑😊

Thank you so much for this talk. Now I will practice saying thank you to the loved ones in my life for reflecting what is, even when I don’t want to hear it.

Excellent talk thank you. It just really helped me as I’m going through a difficult time 🙏🙏🙏