Mindfulness, Equanimity & The Cardinal

This live talk was given to the Atlanta Mindfulness Institute Sunday Mindfulness Group. Mindfulness, the ability to be fully present and to see clearly what is here is the gateway to equanimity. Without mindfulness, equanimity can not develop. It is the presence of equanimity that allows us to truly be at peace. This short talk explores mindfulness and equanimity through the true story of a beautiful red cardinal who faced life with such determination and the human who let go.

Transcript

Okay.

So there may be a few of you who are familiar with this story that I'm going to start out tonight with.

If you've been sitting with me for a while,

You most likely have heard this,

But perhaps you'll hear something new tonight.

The story that I'm going to tell you about this cardinal proved to be a very pivotal point in my mindfulness journey.

It was one of those experiences that becomes transformational and has a lot to do with mindfulness and equanimity.

So this was about 15 years,

16,

15,

16 years ago,

And it happened to be a winter day,

And I was here in Ellijay in my home,

And part of our house,

The whole wall is mostly glass,

And so it has a nice feel of sort of the inside being outside and the outside being inside.

So I was sitting and having a nice peaceful day,

And I all of a sudden heard this loud crash somewhere between a major thump and a crash,

And I looked up and I didn't see anything,

But I knew that something had hit the window,

And I thought perhaps the glass had broken.

So I got up and I looked and the glass wasn't broken,

And so I went outside and I'm looking at where this happened right now,

So that's why I'm probably looking to the side.

But I went outside and looked around and at first didn't see anything,

And then my gaze moved downward and I saw this beautiful red male cardinal lying on his back,

Very close to the house,

And he had clearly flown into the window.

And at this time in my life,

I wasn't really familiar with how unfortunately that happens to birds a lot,

And so this was a new experience for me.

And so I looked down at him and at first I thought he was definitely dead,

But I moved closer to him,

And as I got closer I could see his chest just barely moving,

Just barely moving up and down.

And so the next,

My body sort of surged with adrenaline and that sort of activation of danger arose,

Not my danger,

But his danger,

And sort of a panic took over.

And I thought,

I don't want him to suffer,

What can I do,

What can I do,

I don't want him to suffer.

And what was happening was all of the fear centers were being aroused,

The fear of death,

The fear of pain,

The fear of suffering.

And so I started kind of darting around in my mind thinking how can I end his suffering,

He's suffering,

I don't want him to die a prolonged death.

And so I thought maybe I'll get a bucket and I could drown him,

And that seemed really harsh and I didn't know how to do that.

And then something else happened.

This pause took over.

I didn't actively try to pause,

It just came.

And there was my practice,

And at this time my practice was fairly young,

My daily serious practice was fairly young,

And I just got still.

I knew enough to get still and to just stop what I was behaviorally doing.

And as I stopped and relaxed the body a little bit,

Things started to quiet down a little bit,

And I took another look at the little cardinal and his chest was still moving.

And as the mindfulness grew and the old conditioning lessened in intensity,

I started to realize I don't know what's happening with him.

And if I don't know,

How is it that I can take definitive action?

I don't know what's happening.

I don't know if he's dying.

So with that,

I decided to wait and to just see what would happen with him.

And so for the next about hour and a half to two hours,

I would move away from him and give him space,

And I would just go sit and be patient.

And I would come back,

And as I came back and would look at him again,

I would notice that his chest was moving with more,

Sort of more exaggeratedly,

Like I could see it moving more.

And then I came back another time and he turned over,

But he was very still when he turned over.

And I came back again and he was moving his head around.

And ultimately about an hour and a half to two hours,

I came back and he flew away.

But interestingly enough,

He didn't fly all the way away.

He just flew up to a branch.

And I just looked at him and oddly,

He seemed to be looking back.

And we just sat in that place for a minute or so.

And then he flew away.

And in that two hours,

That cardinal taught me more than I had learned lots of times in whole classes.

So I want to use this story to talk about a few things.

First of all,

Some awarenesses I had.

First of all,

I was very aware that without mindfulness established,

What we actually have to make decisions is mostly our old conditioning.

We might have some book knowledge too that can go along with it.

We can have some learned intelligence.

But in emotional situations,

Often it's actually our conditioning more than learned behaviors that take over.

And for me in that moment,

One of the most prominent experiences I had had in my life was my own father's traumatic death,

Which taught me a lot about pain and suffering.

And I also had a lot of conditioning in my family and in the culture to be afraid of death,

To be afraid of pain,

That pain isn't part of life,

Try to move away from it.

Suffering is bad.

And so I brought all of this to that moment where I saw the cardinal almost dead,

I thought.

And without the establish of mindfulness,

That's what I was using to make this decision,

Basically about his life or death.

And so when mindfulness became established,

What first came on board was mindfulness internally,

Understanding a little bit,

Being aware of what was actually happening in my body and mind at that moment,

Knowing the mind is really panicking right now,

Knowing my body is contracted right now.

These are very important awarenesses and also mindfulness externally,

Actually seeing the little cardinal.

And from this mindfulness internally and externally,

I was able to investigate what is this,

What's here right now,

And to actually see the fragments of the old conditioning pressing in on wanting to know,

Which then led to the wisdom of don't know mind.

I don't know what's happening here exactly.

It's so interesting in our culture,

We think wisdom comes from knowing.

And what Zen teaches us is there is a much deeper wisdom often in not knowing.

And so as mindfulness was established and investigation was allowed,

Something called Samadhi set in.

Samadhi is a Pali word that's often translated,

Not great,

But as concentration.

But I think a better translation is a unification,

A collectedness.

Mind and body kind of came together.

And as this happens in a settling way,

A settling down,

This is what's needed for the establishment of equanimity.

And a lot of times,

And we talked about this last time we were together and talked about equanimity,

But we first often experience equanimity as physical balance.

But ultimately,

Equanimity is experienced as letting go.

And so those two hours spent with the cardinal were really two hours of letting go,

Letting go over and over,

Letting go of wanting to control it,

Letting go of wanting to know,

Letting go of wanting to fix it,

Letting go of not wanting to sit with my own fear,

Discomfort and pain,

Letting go.

So ultimately,

This equanimity is this ability to let go with a balanced sense of mind,

Heart and body.

And when we do this,

We step back into the flow of life,

Whatever that is,

Whether the cardinal had actually passed away,

Whether the cardinal had gotten up and flown away.

We step back into the flow of life.

So I'll leave it there.

And let's just take a moment just to pause and just to settle in and see how that lands for you.

See if there's any part that resonates in your own life.

Perhaps you've had an experience where you've noticed that initially,

You're conditioning all the experiences that you've had or pressing on it,

Getting you to move in one direction.

And then with the establish of mindfulness,

Maybe you were able to sit still,

Come back to that don't know mind.

And how is it to sit with don't know mind?

How is it to let go of control and find the balance again,

And being a part of the moment,

Part of life?

So,

I thought we we haven't broken into small groups and just to have a opportunity to talk about this in our own lives.

This is how mindfulness really takes its power when we contemplate it in our own lives and of course practice it in our own lives.

So we'll break into small groups for about 10 minutes and then we'll come back.

And if it doesn't feel like that's what you need tonight,

I hope you'll just stay and silently contemplate.

But it can be really useful just to share with others and to remember that this is a experience of mindful listening and mindful speaking.

So to be really present to your own experience and other people's experiences.

Reviews

What a powerful story!

Wonderful and deep. Many thanks