And now the moment you've all been waiting for.
I would like to start with another poem.
It's from the early Buddhist teachings.
If your mind becomes firm,
Like a rock,
And no longer shakes.
In a world where everything is shaking.
Your mind will be your greatest friend.
And suffering will not come your way.
If your mind becomes firm like a rock.
And no longer shakes in a world where everything is shaking.
Your mind will be your greatest friend and suffering will not come your way.
So everything is shaking,
Right?
You only need to pick up a newspaper or listen to the news to get in touch with the shaking world that we're in.
And then there's the obvious way everything is shaking.
Our bodies,
Aging,
Sickness,
Death.
Can't stop that shaking from happening.
But we try.
Don't we?
We try.
When life refuses to cooperate,
We hold on.
We shake right along with it.
And this is where the Buddhist teaching of equanimity comes in.
Equanimity is one of the ten paramis.
Or these qualities of heart that we are cultivating on the path.
It's sometimes described,
Equanimity is sometimes described as balance of mind.
And evenness of mind.
This ability to remain steady in the midst of changing circumstances.
But I want to be careful about what we mean by steady.
Equanimity doesn't mean we don't feel things.
It doesn't mean we stop caring.
Or become indifferent to suffering.
It's not developing a kind of spiritual armor that protects us from being in touch with life.
And being touched by life.
I think in a culture of.
.
.
Disassociation.
We can make equanimity mean non-feeling.
But equanimity doesn't ask us to feel less.
It asks us whether we can feel what we feel.
Without being completely carried away by it.
So the poem says that when the mind becomes firm like a rock,
Suffering will not come our way.
I don't think this means that we'll no longer experience the pain that comes with being a human being.
The Buddha was pretty clear that pain is part of this life.
I think what the poem may be pointing to.
Is that pain doesn't have to become the whole story of our experience.
It's asking that question,
Like,
What else?
What else is here?
We can actually meet the changing conditions of our lives without losing our footing every time something changes.
Some of you may remember the story that I shared some time ago,
The story of Angulimala.
He was a violent killer in the Suttas,
The story goes.
Who became a follower of the Buddha.
And when Angulimala first encountered the Buddha,
He pursued him with the intention of killing him.
Yet despite Angulimala's efforts,
He couldn't catch up with the Buddha.
Who continued kind of walking at an ordinary pace.
And finally,
Angulimala called out Asking the Buddha to stop.
And the Buddha replied,
I have stopped.
It is you who have not stopped.
Well,
That was confusing,
So the Buddha explained.
That he had stopped harming living beings while Angulimala had not.
And so this encounter changed Angulimala's life.
He put down his weapons and he became a practitioner.
And there is a lot more to this story.
But what interests me today is this act of stopping.
Angulimala his transformation began.
When he stopped.
He didn't have to resolve his entire past in that moment.
He didn't have to know what the rest of his life would look like.
He didn't have to become a completely different person before he could take the first step.
He stopped doing what he was doing.
And I really wonder if this is one of the most successful ways that we can begin to cultivate equanimity in our own lives.
We don't have to wait until we are wise or calm.
Or free from our habitual reactions.
We can start right where we are.
We can stop.
Not stopping feeling hurt,
Not stopping caring about outcomes.
Not even stopping having thoughts.
Just stop acting on the first impulse.
You know,
This is a small act,
But it's not a trivial one.
We're interrupting the momentum of habit when we stop.
And perhaps this is where an unshakable mind really begins.
Not as this permanent state that we have to achieve.
Or that we're aiming to achieve.
But as kind of this repeated willingness to stop being carried away.
The other idea I want to explore within this context of equanimity is what I think of as right-sizing.
One of the things that happens when we are caught in like a strong reaction is that our experience becomes distorted.
Something happens and the mind enlarges it.
Or something happens and we do the opposite.
We minimize what's happening because we don't want to feel it.
We tell ourselves that we shouldn't be upset,
That it doesn't matter,
That everything is changing,
That we should just get over it,
Let go.
That's another form of disassociation.
So right-sizing means learning to see what is happening.
In proportion to what is actually happening.
You know,
A difficult conversation.
Is a difficult conversation.
It may be important.
It may require a response.
But it doesn't mean that the relationship is doomed.
And I think the mind can go there.
Right sizing isn't about dismissing our feelings or convincing ourselves that everything is fine.
It's about distinguishing the event itself.
From all the additional meaning we've attached to it.
And this is where I see a connection with the Buddhist teaching of not-self.
You know,
It's often that it's not simply that somebody disagrees with us.
It's that they disagree with me.
And the ego has a way of making everything so personal.
It takes ordinary events,
You know.
And turns them into questions of identity and worth and survival.
So what if a difficult moment.
Could simply be a difficult moment.
Rather than.
Another chapter in this ongoing story of me.
That's a possibility,
Right?
So I think we need to be careful when we explore equanimity so that we don't turn it into another standard.
Against which we measure ourselves.
The practice isn't to become someone who is never shaken.
It's to learn what happens when we are shaken.
And to find our way back.
Back to this body.
Back to the present moment.
To that really simple recognition that this is what is happening right now.
So I want to return one last time to the story of Angulimala.
What moves me about his story is that his life changed when he stopped.
His transformation began not with a grand declaration,
But with a willingness to interrupt the direction he was going.
And I think we have opportunities to do that same thing every day.
We know what it is to be swept away into busyness,
Into fear,
Into anger,
Into resentment,
Into the need to be right all the time.
And we know what it is to recognize.
And sometimes that recognition comes afterward.
That we have made things worse by the way that we've reacted.
But we can recognize.
So perhaps when we find ourselves in that place where there is conflict or there is change or there is a pull to get what you want.
Perhaps we can remember to stop.
And we can ask ourselves whether we're making the situation larger than it needs to be.
Whether we're defending an image of ourselves.
This is how we cultivate equanimity.
Not by controlling the world,
But by changing our relationship to it.
And maybe this is what it means for the mind to become our greatest friend.
Not that we'll never be shaken.
But that we've learned how to stop.
Maybe.
The first step to a balanced mind.
Is really simply stopping.
So I offer this.
For your consideration.
And I welcome your comments.
