In one of the teachings of the Buddha,
He was asked,
What is the way to Brahma,
To God?
And his response to that was these four attitudes that we've been focusing on the past couple of weeks,
The Brahma Viharas,
Known as the divine abodes,
The home of Brahma.
When we're awakened to these areas within ourselves,
We're really at home in ourselves and in our life.
We began with loving kindness,
Metta,
The quality of the heart that when we cultivate it is expressed as friendliness and well-wishing to others,
To ourselves.
And then we looked at compassion,
Karuna,
This ability to meet suffering,
To care about the difficulty that is inherent in our life.
And then last week we explored the natural expression of joy.
And today,
The last of these divine qualities,
Equanimity,
Upeka is the Pali word,
Upeka and equanimity,
In my experience,
Feels like the ground of all the other three.
The felt experience of equanimity,
Of balance,
Has been described as a balance born of wisdom,
Personally,
Equanimity has been so nourishing for my practice.
In some ways,
It is the first experience that I've felt in practice,
Particularly in relationship to others,
Not getting pulled into another's world or perception.
You know,
It's particularly helpful as a parent to be balanced,
As a partner with another.
Early on in practice,
I heard a story,
A Zen story,
Where the student comes to visit his dying teacher and the student asks,
You know,
What is the teaching of your entire life?
And the teacher replies,
An appropriate response,
An appropriate response.
That comes out of equanimity.
So the Pali word,
Upeka,
Literally means to have an overview of something,
To see the big picture.
It's like if you were sitting on a big boulder and watching the river below you roll by.
Or the Buddha gives the analogy of sitting on a hilltop above a town and looking down and seeing all the hustling and bustling of the town,
But having this overview that allows for a certain non-reactivity.
The mind doesn't get agitated.
It's peaceful in the face of whatever's happening.
That's what equanimity feels like,
Looks like.
And in this Buddhist tradition,
Equanimity is often taught through what are known as the eight worldly winds.
And there are four different pairings of conditions that change throughout our life.
And they blow all of our life.
So these four pairs of opposites are gain and loss,
Praise and blame,
Pleasure and pain,
And success and failure.
These conditions blow throughout our life.
Gain and loss,
Praise and blame,
Pleasure and pain,
And success and failure.
Gain and loss,
You know,
We get things and things go away.
Praise and blame,
This happens all the time.
You know,
If you're in a role of speaking in front of people,
Sometimes you love what they're saying,
Sometimes you hate what they're saying.
Praise and blame,
It's inevitable.
And success and failure is just more specific.
It's a more specific version of praise and blame.
Pleasure and pain,
You know,
We feel good,
We feel bad.
And these are the conditions of our entire life.
The world kind of revolves around these eight worldly winds.
They come and go,
And they're constantly changing.
And so when we don't see clearly,
When we don't see the arising and passing of this gain,
Or this pleasure,
Or this pain,
If we don't see it and relax,
And let it be,
And let it just,
Like,
Understand that this is subject to change,
Then what happens in the mind is the mind becomes obsessed.
And then we're pulled,
And we're often pulled into actions that are not an appropriate response.
So as part of our practice this morning,
I'm going to repeat these very slowly again.
And I'd like you to let the mind hear these pairings of opposites,
And see where they take you in your own life.
And if you start to wander into like the political field,
It's easy to go there with like praise and blame,
Right?
Or something outside of your immediate life experience.
I just repeat the two words,
And see where this has been true in your direct experience.
Pleasure and pain.
Pleasure and pain.
Gain and loss.
Gain and loss.
Praise and blame.
Praise and blame.
Success and failure.
Success and failure.
Breathing in and experiencing the felt sense in your body.
Where are they now?
Fragile,
Changing,
Impermanent.
So how do we learn to work with these teachings?
Sort of in the way of letting ourselves see them,
Just like we just did.
Keeping our heart open to see,
Oh,
This is pain,
This is pleasure.
Allowing ourselves to feel the pull of the attraction towards the pleasure,
And the way in which we push away pain.
Learning for them is how we develop equanimity.
We find balance by seeing which way the wind is blowing,
And aware that it's subject to change.
When things don't go our way,
And we want them to be different,
Noticing how the heart responds,
Or the body.
Is there ease?
Is there resistance?
And if there's resistance,
Can that just be feedback?
Your body is not understanding the way things work right now.
That they're changing.
They're subject to change.
Learn there.
The equanimity of the Brahma Viharas is one of wisdom's most mature forms,
Where we're so at ease and peaceful with the way things are.
These winds can be happening,
And we can be stable and not agitated.
In my direct experience,
I can feel the tightness of the winds blowing through me.
But through practice,
I can access stability right away.
Even just feeling my feet on the ground can bring me back to balance sometimes.
That simple.
These Brahma Viharas,
These divine states,
Are decisions.
It's a decision that we make for ourselves.
If we're going to have a better world,
Including ourselves,
There needs to be love,
And good will,
And friendship,
And balance.
And if we don't have that,
Then I really don't think we're going to have a better world for ourselves.
The Buddha said,
Hatred never ceases with hatred,
But by love alone is healed.
Hatred never ceases with hatred,
But by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient,
Eternal truth.
So thank you for your consideration of this interpretation of the Brahma Viharas.
I appreciate your attention.
