Live Session Summary, Sunday, November 19, 2023: It was good to be with you for our Live session where we explored the practice of equanimity and how it can support us in these challenging times.
Here are some of the main themes, quotes, and poems I shared:
I spoke of the importance of equanimity in the Buddha’s teachings: It is one of the four ‘heart practices’—along with, loving-kindness, compassion, and appreciative joy—which allow us to open fully to all beings and all experiences; and the final quality of the ‘seven factors of awakening’—with mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, and concentration. These seven qualities, according to the Buddha, incline us to awakening just as the river inclines towards the ocean.
The English word equanimity is from the Latin ‘aequus’ = ‘equal’ and ‘animus’ = mind or spirit. This conveys the quality of steadiness, balance, and groundedness of equanimity. A literal translation from the Pali language is ‘there in the middle-ness’, i.e., not swept up in one extreme or another (clinging or aversion, right or wrong, pain or pleasure, etc.)
The Buddha spoke of ‘eight worldly winds’ that are an inevitable part of our human existence—that ‘untrained’ people tend to get caught up in:
• “Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, success and failure are the eight worldly winds. They ceaselessly change. As a mountain is unshaken by the wind, so the heart of a wise person is steady amidst all the changes on this earth.” (Lokavipatti Sutta: ‘The Failings of the World’)
Many things that happen we may have little or no control over—events in the world (e.g., floods, fires, earthquakes, recessions, wars…) and things that happen in our lives (health issues, financial ups and downs, relationships ending, etc.) But what we do have control over is how we meet our experiences—when we meet the highs and lows with equanimity, with a steady and balanced mind, and without clinging or resistance, we experience greater ease and well-being.
The good news is that we can train our minds—all of the Buddha’s teachings are premised on this potential that we all have. He said, nothing can do you more good than a trained mind… and nothing can do you more harm than an untrained mind.
Buddhist meditation teacher Christina Feldman expressed it this way:
• ‘Every human heart holds the seeds of resilience and balance and the capacity for liberating understanding. The ability to stand with poise in the midst of our lives rests upon bringing those seeds to maturity… Cultivating our capacity for balance, we learn to meet the many small moments of discomfort that are part of our daily experience without flinching or turning away, discovering it is possible to surround discomfort with a calm stillness.’
I shared the Zen farmer story of equanimity: ‘How fortunate!’ / ‘How sad’… ‘Maybe so’; and William Blake’s poem ‘Eternity’; and distinguished equanimity from indifference, which is said to be the ‘near enemy’ of equanimity, resembling it in some ways but actually missing the compassion and wisdom that are present in equanimity. In contrast to equanimity, indifference is a distancing ourselves from suffering and an avoiding or shutting down of our feelings and may be a form of ‘spiritual by-passing.’ This is a term coined by psychologist John Welwood for using spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.
Equanimity involves fully opening to our experience—feeling the joys and the sorrows, but not clinging to them… In the words of T.S. Eliot in his poem ‘Ash Wednesday’: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” Caring without clinging.
In the meditation, I shared the opening lines of Rumi’s poem ‘The Guest House’ and ‘Ten thousand flowers in spring’ by Wu-Men.
Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it and a good week ahead to all. Here’s a link to my new six-session course on ‘Keys to the Buddha’s central teachings of the Four Noble Truths’: https://insig.ht/YfQSkC1qOEb I hope you find it helpful.
I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, November 26 at 9am eastern. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
