Summary of May 12, 2024 Session:
Dear Friends, Happy Mother’s Day to all who are celebrating! It was good to be with you today for our Live session. The theme was ‘The Power of Equanimity in Challenging Times.’
Here are some of the main themes, poems, and quotes from today’s Live:
We began by discussing how challenging it is to live in these current times—both in terms of all that is happening in the world and in relation to our personal lives. The changes that are taking place with respect to the amount and pace of information coming in about the world—and particularly the suffering that is going on in so many places—can feel overwhelming.
We can be made aware of tremendous human suffering within minutes of it happening and without time to fully process it… before the next major event or tragedy comes along. I’ve spoken at other times about the ‘unmourned grief’ that we can carry around that affects us in ways that we may be largely unconscious of.
Our human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years has not fully prepared us for the scale and pace of what we are being inundated with in our current world—from climate change to the wars and human suffering projected nightly on our TVs and through our multiple devices. Add to this the challenges of attempting to survive and thrive in our personal lives. It’s not surprising that so many are weighed down by strong emotions and mind states, like fear, anger, pain, grief, overwhelm, and even despair. This speaks to ‘being human’ in the 21st Century.
The good news—for those fortunate enough to encounter the teachings of the Buddha and other authentic teachers of wisdom and compassion—is that while we may have relatively little control, sometimes more, over the external conditions, we have great potential to determine how we meet everything that is arising in our bodies, hearts, and minds, and in the world. Viktor Frankl, who survived the Auschwitz concentration camp, spoke of this as “the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
The key to our happiness and freedom comes from training our mind—and particularly through bringing awareness, with kindness, to our moment-to-moment experience. The Buddha put it this way: “Nothing can do you more harm than an untrained mind… Nothing can do you more good than a trained mind.” And one of the most powerful practices, particularly when working with difficult or challenging experiences, is to cultivate equanimity.
The word equanimity comes from the Latin, meaning an ‘equal mind’—a mind able to meet life’s circumstances in a balanced and steady way. This is also its meaning in Buddhist teachings—the ability to meet life’s ‘ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows’ in a way in which we are not overwhelmed by what’s painful nor overly exuberant or triumphal about pleasant or favorable occurrences.
The word in Pali for equanimity is upekkha, which has the meaning of looking at something in a dispassionate or unbiased way. The image that is often used for equanimity is of a mountain that is unaffected by the rain, hail, sleet and snow that fall on it. This is stated in an early Buddhist teaching:
• “Just as a rocky mountain is not moved by storms, so sights, sounds, tastes, smells, contacts and ideas, whether desirable or undesirable, will never stir one of steady nature, whose mind is firm and free.” (Anguttara Nikaya)
• And in a verse from early Buddhist awakened nuns:
“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.”
Equanimity plays an important role in Buddhist teachings: It is the fourth and final of the ‘divine abodes’ (Brahma Viharas in Pali) and helps balance the other three qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, and appreciative joy. It is also the final quality of what are known as the Seven Factors of Awakening—seven qualities (mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity) that help incline us towards enlightenment, or complete freedom from suffering, just as a river inclines towards the ocean.
I shared T.S. Eliot’s lines from his poem Ash Wednesday: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.” I hear this as “teach us to care and not to cling…”
Equanimity is rooted in wisdom—knowing that everything changes and that nothing lasts forever, not human or animal lives, buildings, cities, civilizations, and even our planet and the universe. When we know impermanence deeply, it leads to equanimity—the acceptance, non-clinging and freedom that come from knowing that nothing whatsoever can or should be clung to…
I finished by highlighting a teaching from the Buddha on equanimity called The Lokapivatti Sutta, or teaching on ‘the failings of the world,’ in which the Buddha says, “Monks [or practitioners broadly], these eight worldly conditions spin after the world, and the world spins after these eight worldly conditions.” These eight worldly conditions, also called ‘worldly winds,’ are pain and pleasure, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute. We will continue next week with an exploration of these worldly winds and a reflection on the theme of equanimity more broadly.
We finished with a story about a Zen farmer that can be found online under the title, “ Zen farmer story Are these good times or bad times?” I also shared William Blake’s poem Eternity: “He who binds to himself a joy // Does the winged life destroy // He who kisses the joy as it flies // Lives in eternity’s sunrise.”
Elva asked the name of my book on mindfulness and habit change in Spanish. It’s El Hábito del Aquí y Ahora and it was published in Spain by Editorial Sirio. Wishing you all a good week ahead and I look forward to seeing you next Sunday, March 19, at 9am eastern for our next live session. Warmly, Hugh 🙏🏻 💜 🌻
