Equanimity: Equally Close To All Things

Equanimity — the willingness to be with things as they are — is one of the most refined forms of happiness. In this talk, Shaila Catherine offers many practical suggestions for cultivating equanimity and enhancing our experience of this profoundly balanced state. In particular, she discusses how we can cultivate equanimity by bringing mindfulness to our experience of pleasure and pain and to our expectations for the future.

Transcript

This evening I'd like to speak about equanimity,

And I've titled this talk,

Equally Close to All Things.

Upaka is the Pali term that's usually translated as equanimity.

It's a factor that's included in many Buddhist lists.

We find equanimity as one of the four Brahma-viharas,

As one of the seven factors of enlightenment,

And as the feeling of happiness that is associated with the deep absorption states of jhana.

Upaka is considered an ethical quality,

A quality that is worth cultivating.

It's not the mere experience of a neutral feeling.

In the development of the Brahma-viharas,

We have the presentation not only of the factor of equanimity,

But also of the near enemies of the Brahma-viharas,

Those things that look like the Brahma-viharas but are not.

The near enemy of equanimity,

What it can be mistaken for,

That is,

Is indifference,

Avoidance,

Withdrawal.

And so it's important that these not be confused with genuine equanimity.

Equanimity is animated with interest.

There's presence in the equanimous experience,

Interest in whatever is occurring simply because that is what is occurring.

Sometimes though we don't bother to recognize equanimity.

That's a very subtle feeling.

When we notice the tendency though to move away from what we don't like,

We recognize that as aversion.

But what happens when aversion has ended?

Perhaps equanimity might be established.

We recognize the desire to want something,

To reach for something,

To crave for things that we're habitually seduced by.

But what about the moment when that desire passes?

Perhaps then equanimity might be established.

Equanimity is not a dramatic feeling,

But it is deliciously cooled out.

The mind is free from agitation.

Equanimity may be the most exquisitely refined form of happiness that is available in the conditioned realm of mind and body.

Equanimity is developed in so many ways.

Ram Dass used to say,

Life is your curriculum.

We learn so much from situations in our own lives.

Equanimity enables us to be with the vicissitudes of life,

To stay connected,

To be equally close to all things.

Equally close to the things that we like and equally close to the things that we don't like.

One of my Insight Meditation teachers,

Christopher Titmus,

Had told me early on in my practice that there were two arenas that required equanimity,

Pleasure and pain and future results.

And this has been my guide for the cultivation of equanimity.

Pleasure and pain.

Throughout the day there are innumerable changes.

Our experience is always changing.

Some moments are pleasant,

Other moments are unpleasant.

Some perceptions flutter between the two feelings.

And some experiences are not distinctively either pleasant or unpleasant.

But it's all life.

And for the most part,

Life is beyond what we can predict or what we can control.

The truth is that in life we get pleasant experience and unpleasant experience.

And we're not going to change that.

But are we to be tossed and turned?

Are we to be twisted around and agitated by these vicissitudes of feeling?

Or can we stay steady in the face of these shifts?

Unfertility,

Balanced,

Equanimous,

Peaceful,

Accepting.

These qualities reveal a depth of understanding.

An ability to be still with things just as they are.

The traditional teaching is that life includes eight worldly conditions,

What are sometimes called the worldly winds that blow through our lives,

Gain and loss,

Praise and blame,

Fame and disrepute,

Pleasure and pain.

There are so many examples of these shifts and these changes.

We can probably think of many civilizations that have arisen and then passed.

Governments that won the parliament or the seats of the election and then lost some years later.

Religions that gained prominence and then disappeared completely from the planet.

Economic empires that were strong and then later weak.

Stocks and bonds that rose and then fell.

Studies that appeared and disappeared.

Prizes that were won,

World records that were held and then later overturned by someone else.

Romances have beginnings and sometimes they have endings.

We can do one thing and one person will love us for it and somebody else will hate us for it.

The very same statement can gain both praise and blame from different quarters.

The very same action can be both appreciated and unappreciated.

When I was staying in the monasteries in Thailand,

We were encouraged to develop equanimity so that the mind would not shake between desire and aversion.

And one of the places we were encouraged to practice was with the meal.

We had one meal a day and we would go through the line with our little coconut bowls and put the food,

The rice,

The curries,

The vegetables,

The various foods in our little coconut bowls.

And we were encouraged to practice equanimity with whatever was offered.

Well,

That's fine to start with.

After a while,

It's fine.

Whatever it is,

It's just fine.

But then,

You know,

If we noticed that we,

You know,

Sometimes we'd start to like,

It was fine,

But then we'd put the rice over here in the coconut bowl and on this side,

We'd put the desserts and then we'd put like the banana in between to kind of keep them separate so that the curries didn't mix with the desserts.

So the suggestion was to take a cup of water,

To pour it into the bowl,

To stir it up and then to eat it.

The nutritional value is exactly the same.

What's the difference if it mixes down here or it mixes in the bowl?

What difference does it make?

Could the mind remain balanced when what was thought to be pleasant has turned now into something that's just slightly disgusting?

In the Middle-Ink Discourses,

In the development of the faculty sutta,

It says,

When a bhikkhu sees a form with the eye,

There arises in him what is agreeable.

There arises what is disagreeable.

There arises what is both agreeable and disagreeable.

Okay,

Fair enough.

We see some things that we like and some things that we don't like.

He understands thus,

There has arisen in me what is agreeable.

There has arisen what is disagreeable.

There has arisen what is both agreeable and disagreeable.

But that is conditioned,

Gross,

Dependently arisen.

This is peaceful.

This is sublime.

That is equanimity.

The agreeable that arose,

The disagreeable that arose,

And the both agreeable and disagreeable that arose cease in him and equanimity is established.

So the Buddha here is acknowledging that a feeling will arise whenever there is contact.

A feeling might be pleasant.

It might be painful.

Or the feeling might be somewhere neither quite pleasant nor unpleasant.

But feelings come with experience and there's not much that we can do to affect the nature of the feeling.

But there's a lot that we can do to affect how we relate to the feeling.

In this sutta,

He describes equanimity first regarding forms cognizable by the eye.

And he describes them with this smooth and easy simile.

And he says,

It's like a man with good eyesight.

Having opened his eyes might shut them or having shut his eyes might open them.

So too concerning anything at all,

The agreeable that arose,

The disagreeable that arose,

And the both agreeable and disagreeable that arose cease just as quickly,

Just as rapidly,

Just as easily,

And equanimity is established.

It's not a very strenuous image,

Is it,

Of opening or closing the eyes?

But the discourse isn't just about seeing.

Regarding sounds cognizable by the ear,

He illustrates it with an image,

A simile of raindrops that roll off a slightly sloping lotus leaf.

It says,

Just as raindrops on a slightly sloping lotus leaf roll off and do not remain there.

So too concerning anything at all,

The agreeable that arose,

The disagreeable that arose,

And the both agreeable and disagreeable that arose cease just as quickly,

Just as rapidly,

Just as easily,

And equanimity is established.

I love that image.

I mean,

It's not so different than the common statement,

You know,

Let things roll off like water off a duck's back.

But sometimes we forget that,

And we let those things penetrate our minds,

Obsess our minds.

Why not let them roll off like rainwater rolling off a slightly sloping lotus leaf?

It makes contact,

But it doesn't remain.

Regarding flavors cognizable by the tongue,

He says,

Just as a strong man might easily spit out a ball of spittle collected on the tip of his tongue,

So too concerning anything at all.

The agreeable that arose,

The disagreeable that arose,

And the both agreeable and disagreeable that arose cease just as quickly,

Just as rapidly,

Just as easily,

And equanimity is established.

And regarding mind objects cognizable by the mind,

It is as if a man were to let two or three drops of water fall on an iron plate heated for the whole day.

The falling of the drops might be slow,

But they would quickly vaporize and vanish.

So too concerning anything at all,

The agreeable that arose,

The disagreeable that arose,

And the both agreeable and disagreeable that arose cease just as quickly,

Just as rapidly,

Just as easily,

And equanimity is established.

In these illustrations,

It's important to recognize that feeling arises.

Contact occurs.

The senses are stimulated,

And in an experience of contact,

There is feeling.

The practice does not stop feeling from arising.

There will be pleasant experiences.

There will be unpleasant experiences,

And there will be those in between or neither quite pleasant nor unpleasant experiences.

Feelings are a natural part of every experience.

Every experience of seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Touching,

And mind objects all arise in conjunction with feeling.

But the feelings do not need to penetrate the mind.

They do not need to grip our attention and cause the ripples and waves of reaction and reactivity.

As other suttas phrase it,

They do not need to invade the mind and remain.

When feelings arise,

There are two things that we can do.

We can know that the feeling has arisen,

And we can investigate it so that we understand what is that feeling,

How does it function,

What are its characteristics.

And we can recognize that all feelings are impermanent,

Conditioned.

They're connected with suffering.

They're subject to change.

Essentially,

We bring mindfulness and investigation to meet feeling.

We become mindful of Vedana.

This is the second foundation of mindfulness.

The effect of mindfulness and investigation is that equanimity becomes established quickly and easily,

Like those similes.

I like these similes because they don't involve a lot of struggle,

To me each one describes something that is relatively light and easy.

Perhaps the hardest one to me is spitting.

I never really practiced that.

But I suppose in ancient India when they like chewed on beetle and that sort of thing,

They probably all knew how to spit really well.

So that was probably not then considered to be a skillful activity or an activity that required great skill or dexterity.

It probably felt like a very natural response,

An easy thing to do.

Think about that,

Letting equanimity be an easy response.

Equanimity develops out of seeing experience with wisdom.

It does not develop by imposing our demands or our desires.

But equanimity is not incredibly dramatic,

Though it's one of the highest forms of happiness.

The mistake most people make in the development of equanimity is to forget to notice it,

To forget to really recognize this subtle quality and to see the context that it arises in,

To recognize the qualities that nurture and support it,

To see the characteristics of equanimity itself and the conditions that it depends upon,

And to know that it too arises and passes.

It's impermanent.

It's unsatisfactory.

It's not self.

If you find yourself repeating the same patterns and tendencies,

Instead of just thinking,

That's the kind of person I am,

That's just who I am,

I think it's really important that we instead investigate those patterns and cultivate reflective investigation in our practice.

And if you don't know what I mean by investigation or how you could investigate,

Just look to see if whatever that experience is changes.

It can be that simple because impermanence is one of the primary characteristics that we investigate,

That we observe,

That we contemplate.

See how what arises inevitably changes and perishes.

Simple as that.

Notice the beginnings,

Notice the middle,

Notice the ending of experiences.

If you're observing the breath,

Notice the beginning,

The middle,

The end of each in-breath,

The beginning,

The middle,

The end of each out-breath.

If you're observing a feeling,

Notice how it arose and notice when it passes.

If you're observing a mental state,

A reaction,

Or a sensation in the body,

Notice that it appears and notice that it also disappears.

When we start to really recognize the changing nature of experiences,

We find that the desire to grasp and hold pleasant ones and the desire to push away unpleasant ones falls away because we know they're constantly changing.

And so equanimity arises more easily because we're seeing with wisdom.

Equanimity is a powerful expression of wisdom.

It brings such a profound balance to the mind that it enables us to meet any experience without conflict or contention.

It enables us to be with whatever is actually happening.

Now regarding future results,

A lot of emphasis is given to being present.

We remain steady with our experience in the present moment.

And then the next moment,

We're steady with that.

We don't let the mind run forward into the future imagining how things will be.

But incrementally,

Moment after moment after moment after moment,

We bring clarity,

Mindfulness,

Presence into our lives so that our future unfolds in this mindful awareness.

As we develop our practice,

We have to know what is and what is not under our control because there's a lot that we cannot control.

When I look back at my life,

I can see so many turning points where my life just took a dramatic shift,

A shift that I could not have predicted,

A shift that I could not have controlled.

I could not have made it appear.

Opportunities sometimes just appeared and then sometimes they disappeared.

Something just happened and not always according to my plan or my timeline.

I'm sure for all of you if you reflect upon your life,

You'll realize that there were many things that occurred that really were not a part of your plan.

This was really obvious to me when I was traveling because I would literally ask myself sometimes,

How did I get here?

Now the first time I went to Asia,

I went on a round trip ticket and I had a plan.

I even brought travel books.

I had an itinerary.

Something of a joke.

I was only a few weeks into it.

It was actually after the first stop.

I was going to spend three weeks in Bodh Gaya and then I had a plan.

I even had train tickets.

Didn't get on the train.

I only went to my first place on my itinerary and for the next seven years of traveling in Asia,

I would just wonder how did I get here?

And yet I was incredibly happy to be wherever I was.

I followed opportunities,

Opportunities to practice meditation,

Opportunities to take teachings from various masters.

It was an extraordinary time.

I periodically came home to the west to take care of various things that needed to be done and visit my family and then returned.

But then the round trip tickets weren't from the US back to Asia.

They were from Asia back to Asia.

There were many times that I thought that I could predict or plan what I was going to do that day.

I mean in the US it more or less works.

You can have a calendar and a day book and an appointment book and more or less your day might go along how you wrote it down.

That wasn't the case when I was in India.

I could put on my to-do list to buy stamps but just because I had that on my to-do list to buy stamps and just because I made it to the post office that day,

It was a good chance they didn't even have stamps.

When I was traveling in China,

I could go to a bank but it didn't necessarily mean they were going to change money.

I could go to a money changer in an airport and it didn't necessarily mean that they had money to change.

On my first trip to India,

A friend who had been to India many times before saw my expression when I had gone into what they call a chemist,

It's like a drug store or pharmacy,

Looking for aspirin and they didn't have it.

And he saw my expression like I was trying to process what that means,

That a pharmacy doesn't have aspirin.

I was still trying to process that.

What does that mean?

Where am I?

What do I do?

What does that mean?

And he just saw this like pause of disbelief come across my face and he said,

Ah,

This is India.

And I realized that that was the mantra that I needed.

I needed it to remind me to rest a bit,

To enjoy being where I was in India with all its beauty and also its frustration and not demand it to be the way I wanted it to be,

To not expect it to conform to my desires and expectations,

But to let it be just what it was with an ah,

This is where I am.

This is what is.

Can I be with this as it is?

In the Buddhist teachings,

He taught the kinds of actions that lead to happiness and the kinds of actions that lead to suffering.

He also taught though that the intricacies of action,

Of kama,

Are unfathomable.

How can we really know what will happen or what needs to be happening or what should be happening?

What is happening is what is happening and that's probably about all we can know.

In meditation,

We have to learn not to judge ourselves by what is happening or not happening in the practice.

If the sitting is pleasant or if it's unpleasant,

If the mind is agitated or calm,

If we're sleepy or if we're energetic,

If the mind is clear or dull,

These should not be the criteria upon which we evaluate our practice.

We certainly cannot use feeling to assess if that was a good meditation.

It's better to simply check to see if we were able to be present and clear with whatever it was that was happening.

Can we be present for dullness as well as clarity?

Are we as interested in irritation and impatience as we are in appreciation or gratitude?

In one of my early three-month retreats in the 80s,

I was practicing with Sharon Salzberg.

She was one of my interview teachers.

In many of my interviews,

I would report my experience,

Often having painful experience.

She would say,

�That's okay.

� I'd go off and continue to meditate.

I'd come back a couple of days later for my next interview and she'd say,

�That's okay.

� And I'd go back off and keep meditating.

And after a while,

I started to think,

�You know,

That's not okay.

You know,

I just described all this pain.

I just described all this agony,

This suffering.

� And she says,

�That's okay.

Fine for her,

Not fine for me,

Not okay.

� And then she just says,

�No,

That's okay.

� And my time was up,

So I was grumbling.

And as I left thinking,

�What does she know?

It's not okay.

� Easy for her to say,

�She's sitting over there.

� But then I realized that actually it was all okay.

It was okay because it was what was happening and because I was mindful of it.

There was clarity,

There was mindfulness.

And so it was okay.

Even the pain was okay.

Whatever is happening is what's happening.

And our job is not to try to get only pleasant experiences and to try to make the unpleasant ones go away.

Our job is to simply be present for our life,

To know what is happening,

Whether we like what's happening or not.

What we can do is cultivate a wise and compassionate and skillful relationship to whatever is happening.

Sometimes we worry about the future,

What will be happening.

But when we're worried about the future,

We're disconnected from what's actually happening now.

To some extent we can act skillfully and kindly and reinforce all the positive qualities of the mind.

We can incline our minds to develop wholesome states that generally lead us away from suffering and generally lead us toward happiness.

You know,

Mindfulness,

Concentration,

Wisdom,

Clarity,

Investigation,

Joy,

All these good wonderful qualities that we cultivate in practice.

But nevertheless,

No matter what we cultivate,

Exactly what kind of future we'll have in the next minute,

In the next hour,

Tomorrow or next year is beyond the scope of our control.

The future is going to be a surprise.

You probably know the story,

It's often told in many traditions,

Of the poor farmer who had a son and a horse.

Oh,

You don't all know the horse story,

Some of you do.

This poor farmer had a son and a horse.

But one day the horse ran away and the villagers sympathizing with him said,

What bad luck.

But this farmer just said,

I don't know.

And then in a short time the horse came back,

But he came back bringing a mate,

Another horse.

And so the villager said,

What good luck.

Because now he got a second horse,

A fine young horse at no extra cost.

And he just said,

I don't know.

Now his son was training the horse and when he was training the horse,

He fell from the horse and broke his leg.

And so the villager said,

What bad luck.

And the farmer said,

I don't know.

Couple of weeks later,

The army came through town and collected all the men who were able to fight and took them off to fight in the war.

But they didn't take this man's son because he had a broken leg.

So all the villagers said,

Oh,

What good luck.

And he said,

I don't know.

It goes on and on like that.

When the truth is is that we don't know,

We don't know what will come.

We don't know what's next.

How are we going to develop equanimity?

Because the truth is we don't know.

Equanimity actually develops right along with mindfulness.

Whenever we're seeing what is actually happening without the reactivity of those unwholesome states,

Equanimity is present.

Equanimity is present in a mindful state.

So just by cultivating mindfulness,

We are cultivating equanimity.

Now concentration also develops equanimity and tranquility and that non-reactive quality of mind.

When we return again and again to know what is actually happening,

If we have a primary object or an anchor to the meditation and we return to that primary object,

We're letting go of all the distractions.

We're choosing to be un-seduced by competing stimuli.

So the mind naturally becomes less reactive,

Less sticky,

More steady,

More equanimous as our concentration develops.

But reflection practice also encourages equanimity.

And in particular,

The reflection on conditionality and comma.

We gain a matter-of-fact understanding of things as they are when we realize that they're not under our control.

Inevitably though,

It's life that develops equanimity as we open more and more fully to the day-to-day events that compose our existence so that we meet our life with clarity,

With interest,

With wisdom.

Equanimity brings a stable presence of heart in the midst of life so that we can abide equally close to all things.

I'd like to present just a few practical ideas to possibly experiment with to cultivate a bit of equanimity.

The first is that when you sit,

Consider the possibility of a vow to not move.

It doesn't have to be for the whole sitting.

Five minutes is quite fine.

See what happens.

See if you can rest into the experience with the balanced mind and find ease and balance in the stillness.

Hearing the bell ring is a great time to practice equanimity.

I mean,

We're meditators.

We're not Pavlov's dogs that when we ring the bell we salivate or when we ring the bell we all get up.

Next time you hear the bell,

Check out the state of your body and mind.

If you feel like there's a little bit of mental energy left to keep attention going and if your body is not in agony,

Decide to sit for 10 more minutes and to develop equanimity so that when that rings you pause and check it out and then choose whether you want to get up and go do walking meditation or whether you want to sit for 10 more minutes.

And then let the wave of the room of most people departing flow through but not drag you along with that force.

Choosing not to move is a really great one because often there are little itches or little sweat or little fidgets that we can quiet and calm down.

And these little discomforts are great opportunities to work with discomfort,

Very mild unpleasant experience,

Mild pain because it gives us a chance to work with the uncomfortable experiences in the body before we're faced with excruciating,

Agonizing or medical pain.

That way we can train the mind with the little things and learn to remain balanced before we're overcome with severe pain.

We also can develop equanimity around situations of inconvenience.

Maybe you have to wait a little bit.

Maybe you're scheduled for an interview and the previous one went late and you're just standing there waiting.

Well,

Okay.

Can you be okay with that?

Can you be a quantumist with that?

Now if you can manage to be a quantumist when you're waiting for an interview,

Can you be a quantumist when you go home?

Or if you're traveling and your plane is delayed.

Or if you have to give up something that you want or compromise in a relationship.

There are so many opportunities we have to just be patient and to let go,

To be equanimous.

When things don't go the way we like them to,

What happens?

Do we just recognize,

Oh,

That wasn't the way I wanted it to be?

Hmm,

Look at that.

Or do we blame someone or society or an institution or a system?

Or do we try to make a rule or develop a policy so that we won't be inconvenienced again?

Can you rest with the experience of inconvenience with inner balance?

Can you wait gracefully when you need to wait?

When a friend is late?

When the checkout clerk makes an error on the previous person's order and has to redo the whole thing.

Do you get frustrated and just leave your groceries there and storm out?

Or can you just wait?

Illness,

Accidents,

Aging,

Loss all require patience and equanimity from us.

But we shouldn't only develop equanimity in relationship to the painful and unwanted events.

We must also remain steady and not be swept off our feet in moments when things are really going our way,

When we're praised,

When we're succeeding,

When we're flattered,

When we're getting everything that we want.

Because if we're unduly moved by approval and compliments,

We will become gullible and easily seduced by con men,

By salesmen,

Or we'll accept low standards for our work or confuse habitual approval seeking behaviors with the potential for wise and virtuous actions.

There's a deep happiness in equanimity that's far more satisfying than excitement,

Than thrills,

Or than the approval of others.

In fact,

Equanimity is described by the Buddha as being one of the highest kinds of happiness.

Equanimity is consciously developed as a practice of the heart.

And there's even a practice in the Brahma Viharas of equanimity.

Equanimity in the Brahma Viharas supports,

Nurtures,

And balances the qualities of metta,

Loving kindness,

Karuna,

Compassion,

And mudita,

Appreciative joy.

And it provides a dose of reality to all these qualities.

When we develop upeka,

Equanimity as a Brahma Vihara,

The traditional teaching offers a phrase to contemplate.

The phrase says,

All beings are the heirs of their own kama.

Their happiness or unhappiness depends upon their actions,

Not what I may wish for them.

It's a powerful statement.

It reminds us that though we might earnestly wish for beings to be happy,

To be free from suffering,

To have their successes continue and not diminish,

The causes for their happiness are not under our control.

Things occur due to causes and conditions.

And we can continue to cultivate wise attention and nurture wholesome intentions,

But also recognize the complex conditions that will influence the outcome of events.

But sometimes people hear a little bit about kama and misunderstand the teachings on kama.

And they think that it says that people suffer because of their past actions.

And it can tend to blame the victim.

Oh,

The person was in the tsunami or in the hurricane or that terrorist attack because they had bad kama.

And that's not the teachings on kama as the Buddha taught it.

There's an interesting discourse where he describes eight factors that condition what occurs,

That conditions the feelings that occur.

And only one of them is past action.

The first four have to do with health conditions in the ancient system.

It's bile disorders,

Phlegm disorders,

Wind disorders,

Or an imbalance of those three.

It basically means health,

The conditions of the body.

The fifth has to do with climate.

The sixth has to do with accidents and careless behavior.

The seventh assault and only the eighth,

Only one of eight has to do with kama,

Our past action.

Because causes and effects are complex and we cannot say that feelings are all caused by kama action.

In the Buddhist psychology,

They elaborate causes and effects with 24 causal relationships that diagram how both past and present causes affect each mind moment of the cognitive processes.

Now you don't need to study the intricacies of Abhidhamma analysis to get the basic message here which is that we can't identify with certainty what specific causes produce what specific events.

But we can know that nothing occurs without causes.

And so as we reflect on the phrase,

All beings are the heirs of their own kama,

We understand it in a fuller context of the Buddhist teachings.

And this reflection nurtures equanimity,

Not as an excuse that other people suffer,

So I'm an equanimous to their suffering,

But as a realistic perspective on the complexity of events.

It highlights that feelings are not under our control.

We might want pleasant experiences,

We might want to avoid painful ones,

But it's not under our control.

And as equanimity matures,

We'll find that we'll be able to connect with experience,

With the delightful and the difficult experiences,

With the subtle and the gross perceptions without being thrown off balance by that habitual tendency to react against the painful and to grasp toward the pleasant or to ignore the neutral experiences.

Equanimity is truly a lovely way of relating to experience,

So lovely that it can be confused with awakening,

With enlightenment,

With freedom.

One time when I was doing an intensive period of practice focusing on equanimity,

I was really chilled,

Really cool,

Really cooled out,

And everything was so equanimous.

The mind was very,

Very smooth.

And in one interview,

Now I may not have exactly said that I thought that I was free from desire and aversion forever and that all unwholesome reactions were gone,

But my enthusiasm for equanimity may have implied it because there was long,

Long stretches of time when no desire or aversion at even subtle levels arose.

But my teacher very wisely and very matter-of-factly said,

Equanimity is a conditioned state.

It's an extraordinary quality of heart,

True.

It's vital in practice.

We need it in life,

But it's a relative quality of mind.

It is not the end of the practice.

It is not the goal or the aim of the Dhamma practice.

I and mine can still be operating even in deep states of equanimity as the subtle position of the one who is feeling equanimous as the meditator.

The very sense of being the one who was free from the bondage of reactivity,

That was what revealed the limits of equanimity.

So even the extraordinarily calm and peaceful happiness associated with equanimity,

Even that must be seen as impermanent,

As conditioned.

We see that with insight.

But nevertheless,

We cultivate it though it is a conditioned state.

We cultivate it knowing it is a wholesome conditioned state.

And when equanimity is strong,

The mind is not so gross that it will be compelled to move in aversion against the painful or grasp after alluring desires.

But there might still be an experiencer,

An I position,

And therefore not yet freedom.

As one friend is fond of saying,

As long as there is an I,

There is still work to be done.

Reviews

Thank you so much for this clear instruction on equanimity. Exactly what I need to hear & practice
now 🙏

Excellent!

Along as there is an I, there is work to be done. Loved that. Also, when you said this is India, I thought about the horrid condition of the USA today and thought if I could only keep that in mind while working for social justice as Thay taught, I would be closer to the Oneness I seek by experience and not just by intellectual knowing. Thank you.

Excellent 🙏

I’ve learned much, listening to this talk. I shall return again, for I know there are more nuggets of wisdom to be mined. Namaste 🙏🏼

It was really nice!!!

Loved it!

Excellent talk many thanks

The mind is turbulent, Sheila teaches us to embrace our reality and remain engaged while acknowledging our emotions, such a powerful talk full of wisdom and insight, thank you 🙏🏽 may kindness embrace you.

Love the words of The Budda explained with experience. You are courageous to continue the path and share your life. Thank you

Thank you so much for sharing this. I have been struggling with the boundaries of where equanimity and reaction meet. Do I simply accept what is at all times, allowing whatever happens to happen without judgments? Or do I react and protect myself and my loved ones in the face of clear and immediate danger? I would choose the latter. My judgement of the situation might be more equanimous than it might otherwise be without my practice, though.

I do not have a specific meditative discipline, and I have found value in almost every school of practice I have tried. Perhaps a deeper study into Buddhism and the underpinnings of equanimous living might be in order.

As a child, and even now, I have been likened often to a Vulcan from the TV show "StarTrek" (original series, thank you very much 😊) in that I naturally seem to have a more detached, objective, and more logically-inclined way of experiencing the world. My practice to more fully engage and be present in the present moment disrupted that somewhat. Equanimity seems to come more easily for me than for others, but too much of anything is not necessarily a good thing. Hence my current struggle - which itself is not exactly the picture of equanimity. 😊

Thank you again for sharing this talk with us. It have given me some new information to consider and process. I see the light in you. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻