Taking a few moments just to fully arrive here from whatever is happening in your day.
Sensing that.
Welcoming into this space.
This open space.
This safe space.
Feeling into your body beginning with a simple recognition that you're sitting.
The weight of your body in the chair.
The points of contact.
Between your body and the chair.
Points of contact also between the feet and the floor.
And then feeling that point of contact with the floor reaching down through this building to the earth,
Feeling that stability of the earth beneath us.
Aware of the movement of the breath.
Expansion of the breath as you breathe in.
The relaxation as you breathe out.
The gentle rhythm of the breath.
The body breathing itself.
And you can just allow the breath to be natural and easy.
And as strange as this may sound,
You can let go of the meditator,
The one who's trying to do this right.
And just be here with your experience.
Just be curious or interested in what's happening right now.
And letting things be without trying to change anything.
Without trying to have a special experience,
But just allowing everything to be as it is right now,
The body sensations.
There may be some pleasant,
Some unpleasant sensations.
Or maybe the stream of thought,
Thoughts arising,
Passing away.
And just that background awareness of what's happening.
Thoughts,
Sensations,
Having their own feeling tone.
And just being with everything right now without any intervention.
And as you're present in this way,
In this just gentle,
Relaxed way,
You can sense the points of tension,
Points of ease within the body and mind.
And you can check in with how you are reacting.
Maybe a point of tension can feel as a contraction with the body,
However slight.
There's no need to change anything.
Just relax around the contraction,
Watching things arise.
Things pass away.
And the points of ease or the points of steadiness or openness,
Just recognizing them,
Welcoming them also.
And seeing what happens when you.
.
.
Let the meditator relax.
And just be here with whatever is happening.
You may notice that when you don't try to change anything,
And just let everything be.
As it is,
There is a natural ease or a sense that You don't need to control anything.
And even any upset or disturbance with the way things are dissipates.
It's just a natural relaxation around experience.
The mind.
Trying to improve things.
Looking for something better than what's right here.
You can just offer the mind a seat to relax.
Just seeing what happens if you try not to resist whatever is here.
Being with experiences like The sky,
The clouds pass,
Maybe a storm or the sun comes out.
The sky just contains everything.
As it comes and goes.
Knowing everything that's happening,
But without.
.
.
Resistance or opposition.
We'll continue with a period of silence and you can continue with this practice of allowing everything to be just as it is,
Or if you're moved to practice in another way.
Should feel free to do so and I'll call us back in a few minutes.
Thank you.
You may notice the thinking mind filling your head with thoughts.
So you can just recognize.
Thinking mind,
Thinking mind.
And in recognizing,
Realizing that you've come back.
Allowing the thinking mind to be just as it is also.
And now in your own time,
You can come gently back.
As you're ready,
You can open your eyes,
You can welcome the whole visual field.
Might take a moment just to stretch a little bit.
The last of the Buddha's divine abodes,
Or the Brahma-viharas,
These immeasurable qualities of heart and mind that are described in the Pali canon,
Which is where those Buddhist scriptures were first written down.
And the language Pali is upekka,
Is the Pali word.
And it is an axis around which so much in Buddhism turns.
It's the last one of the perfections that lead to enlightenment.
It's also the last awakening factor.
It is most commonly translated as equanimity,
Which seems like a very old-fashioned word,
I think probably uncommon word to many people.
And literally from the Pali,
It means to look over in the sense of being elevated above or a vantage point from which you can see clearly across everything.
There are other translations of simply balance or mental calmness or composure or mental stability or just simply this notion of being able to stay level-headed when you're handling a lot of stress or difficult changes in your life without being overwhelmed.
Overwhelmed.
It's very different in quality from these other divine abodes or immeasurable qualities.
If you're familiar with them,
They are loving kindness and compassion and sympathetic joy.
All of those have sort of this heart quality or this kind of charge to them or the softness.
And in contrast,
Equanimity has a sort of like neutral feeling.
It doesn't have this sort of saying charge to it.
And it makes it it makes it different.
It makes it different from the others.
And it is,
In some ways,
Simply this ability to allow things to be as they are,
As we were practicing in the meditation.
And you might just take a moment,
Before we dive further,
Just to pause and think for yourself.
The times that you're thrown off balance in life and in your best moments,
What is it that helps you to come back?
Or like if your best self could speak to you about how to bring you back in those moments where you're overwhelmed or out of kilter,
Just think for yourself what that might be or experience that you might've had.
This instruction about let all things be as they are,
When I first heard this instruction years ago,
I was confounded by it.
I felt like I was being told to do something,
Which is to let all things be as they are.
But I didn't know how to do that.
It seemed like it required some action from me,
And I wasn't sure what exactly that was.
And slowly I came to this realization that the answer to that question of what you're supposed to do is nothing.
You're supposed to do nothing.
And I think when I got that,
I found it really intriguing.
I didn't understand it.
I still didn't understand it.
But I found it very interesting.
And I should say this is true with a lot of teachings,
At least from my experience,
Is that you hear them the first time.
It sounds weird.
You're trying to figure it out.
The mind is kind of chewing on it.
You're trying to figure out,
What are they talking about?
But at the same time,
There's something about it that kind of grabs you.
It's like,
Oh,
I think there's something really there.
And so I would just encourage you,
If you ever have one of these moments,
Just to let it be.
Allow that,
That curiosity.
And maybe make a mental note.
It's like,
Someday I'm going to come back to this.
And I'm going to keep coming back.
And I bet if I do,
This will sort of grow on me.
So,
To explore this with you,
This notion of equanimity,
I want to try to describe it in three different ways,
Three different approaches to it,
To try to give you a sense of what it's about.
So the first is to live life without reactivity.
And the Buddha tells a story about this.
He says you're sitting somewhere someday just minding your own business and an arrow strikes you out of nowhere.
And you don't even know exactly who shot this arrow.
Arrow strikes you.
And of course,
This is upsetting.
You've just been struck by an arrow and you're upset and you're concerned.
And so forth,
And in response to this being shot by an arrow,
He says,
You,
In response,
Pick up an arrow,
A second arrow,
And shoot it at yourself.
This is the second arrow.
And so he basically says,
Why would you ever do that?
If you get struck by an arrow,
You would never,
In response,
Shoot a second arrow at yourself.
But he says,
Just observe in your own experience.
When something happens that's upsetting or unpleasant,
And particularly when it's unexpected,
What is it that you do is you have this reactivity to it where you say to yourself like this is completely unfair or Why did this happen to me?
Or I don't want to live like this.
Every time I get struck with an arrow,
I hit myself with a second arrow,
That there is a layer of reactivity to this unpleasant experience that follows whatever that is.
And certainly,
One easy example of this is chronic pain.
So for anyone who's experienced chronic pain,
Or know someone who suffers with chronic pain,
You know,
There is the basic sensation of pain itself,
Whatever that is.
And we're taking as a granted that you're going to do everything you can medically to resolve this.
But after you do that,
There is still pain that is not resolved.
And so what does the mind do?
The mind then comes with the second layer or the second arrow of,
This is completely unfair.
Like,
I don't want to live like this.
You know,
Why is it me?
It's always me.
People don't have to live like this.
And that can be as painful or more painful than the actual experience itself.
And those familiar with mindfulness-based stress reduction,
The whole focus of that practice is to separate the two things,
The two arrows.
What is the actual sensation you're experiencing versus the story that you're gonna tell yourself about that experience that is creates a whole network of mental suffering above and beyond what the pain is itself.
And you know,
The research from mindfulness-based stress reduction is that up to 80% of the difficulty that people with chronic pain have is that reactivity to the sensations themselves and the realization that they are not going away.
And thus,
The instruction,
If you were gonna sum up mindfulness-based stress reduction into one,
The instruction would be pain is inevitable,
But suffering is optional.
Pain is inevitable,
But suffering is optional.
So,
And so in the words of the Buddha,
He says,
The first arrow hurts.
So why shoot a second arrow at yourself in life,
We will always have the first arrow,
But the second arrow is optional.
So what's life like without reactivity,
Without the second arrow?
It's simply an appropriate response to anything that's happening.
There is a Zen story of a student comes to a great Zen master and asks,
What's the highest and most profound teaching of all Zen masters?
And the answer is,
An appropriate response is the most profound teaching of all of the Buddhists.
An appropriate response.
As I mentioned,
I was on vacation this past week and it's,
You know,
It's the week at the beach with the family and you have to plan months ahead of time and you finally get there and you unpack and so forth.
And the second night,
We all went to bed,
And at 2 in the morning,
The fire alarm goes off.
Right?
So you have to evacuate the building.
Everybody goes outside.
And it starts to rain outside.
It starts to rain on us.
And,
You know,
You don't know.
I mean,
It's not a lot of activity.
So you're assuming that this is a false alarm,
But you don't know.
And,
And then we see this family with two young kids,
And the two young kids look like they're shivering.
So my wife says,
Why don't you why don't you take off your jacket?
We'll give it to these kids and we give it to these kids.
And then,
You know,
They thank us and we start to talk with them.
And then before you know it,
They tell them we can go back in the building.
And by this time,
You know,
We're telling stories and saying,
Well,
This is going to be one that kids are going to remember,
Certainly.
And we get upstairs and go back to sleep.
And then the next morning,
I'm going down to the beach and I get in the elevator and I say,
Hello,
The person.
And they said,
That was a terrible night last night,
Wasn't it?
And I say,
And for a minute,
I can't remember.
And I said,
Oh,
Really,
What happened?
And she said,
It's the fire alarm.
Don't you remember the fire alarm?
And I say,
Oh,
Right,
Yeah,
The fire alarm.
But the experience that I recall from the night before was not the fire alarm at all.
All right,
So the second way,
Here's a second way to try to understand this quality of equanimity,
Which is living life without clinging and without pushing away.
Living life without clinging and without pushing away.
The Buddha diagnosed this fundamental tension in all experience,
Which is that the mind tends to cling to pleasant experiences experiences and push away negative experiences.
And actually there's a lot of meditative practice that you can do to slow this down and actually carefully observe how this happens moment to moment,
That the mind is constantly sorting between pleasant,
Unpleasant,
And negative experience,
Doing it all by itself.
You know,
It's just categorizing,
Dropping it into one of these buckets,
Everything that happens.
And then in an instant for the pleasant experiences,
It starts to,
It starts to think,
Okay,
How am I going to hold on to this experience?
Maybe even pump it up a little more?
Can I even prove upon it?
How can I keep going?
I don't want it to go away.
So it sets to work in that way.
And then the unpleasant experience is the opposite.
The mind says,
Okay,
This is unpleasant.
So let's see,
How are we going to get rid of this?
I could try to distract myself.
I could try to go do something else.
Figure out,
Well,
How do I get rid of this experience?
And,
And the Buddha recognized that this is,
This is,
This is something that's kind of hardwired inside of us.
And that,
What does it end up,
It ends up as suffering.
I mean,
This is,
He brings this,
You could say that this is the prime cause of mental suffering,
Is this activity.
And If you're not careful,
It can take over your whole life to the sense that,
You know,
The only thing that your life is going to be about is on some small or larger scale,
Trying to pursue and turn up the volume on all pleasant experiences and do the opposite with unpleasant experiences.
So what's the answer to all of this?
Well,
First,
It's basically it's mindfulness of what's happening,
Like realizing like,
This is happening.
This is happening.
And this is probably the biggest of all of the steps is just this simple recognition that my mind is doing this.
And it's not my fault.
It's just doing it.
So start to recognize the patterns.
And then with that,
Recognize that it's not working.
It's not working.
This is billed as the thing that's going to make the one thing that's going to make you happy.
And it's not making you happy.
In fact,
It's making you miserable,
Because you're spending all of your time,
The mind,
Every time there's a pleasant experience,
The mind tightens around that,
To try to make it keep going.
And then every time you have a mind tightens around the unpleasant experience,
The same thing to try to get rid of it.
So it's not working.
This is not happiness.
This is actually endless frustration.
And then suddenly realizing that there is no problem.
With pleasant and unpleasant.
There's not a problem.
And again,
Like with the first arrow,
There's going to be pleasant,
There's going to be unpleasant.
That is life.
It's not a problem.
The simplicity of experience.
And that in that realization,
There's actually complete freedom.
Because then you can be with whatever is happening.
It's absolute,
Complete freedom.
Um.
.
.
So I'll just pause for a second to say with practice,
With meditative practice,
It's these two things that always come together.
One is the opportunity to actually experience these qualities directly through meditative practice.
And this could be longer meditation,
This could be retreats,
But it also could be very short,
Just short glimpses of this little sense of freedom.
Or removing yourself or non-attachment from these cycles of suffering or these patterns of mind.
Meditative experiences,
Like that's,
That's what we do together.
So there are little insights into this other quality of life.
And then in with that,
At least as important is this notion that you're starting to understand your mind.
Joseph Goldstein famously said,
If you want to understand your mind,
Sit down and watch your mind,
Start to see the patterns.
So that wisdom factor of understanding experience,
What is causing suffering,
And what is the path to the release from all suffering.
And so it's that always that back and forth.
It's like meditative experience,
Getting a taste,
Getting a glimpse of what that is,
And then starting to understand for yourself,
Tracing that back through your life experience,
And seeing I actually see how this thing is structured,
The nature of things.
And the Buddha marks this out,
Focuses on what he calls the eight worldly winds.
So this is all of the dynamics of life.
It's gain and loss,
Acquiring things,
Then losing things.
It could be material things or just status.
It's pleasure and pain that can be physical pain or psychological pain.
Praise and blame,
The desire for approval,
The fear of criticism that we all have.
And fame and disrepute.
Wanting to be recognized,
Esteemed,
Valued,
And so forth.
So he says,
These are the eight worldly wins.
This is sort of a complete list of what drives the world.
This is what fuels the world and everyone in it.
And the question is,
How do you manage the worldly wins?
And the answer is that you don't.
You don't.
They come and go.
They arise and they pass away.
Ajahn Chah,
The famous meditation master,
Who is a kind of root teacher for many people in this tradition,
Described it like a log that's going down a river.
So on one bank of the river is the pleasant experience,
On the other bank of the river is unpleasant experience.
So the log comes down the river,
And then it'll hug one side of the river,
Or hit against one side of the river.
And then it'll slowly come off that side,
Moving and that hit the other side of the river and so forth.
So this is life experience,
Not having the law get stuck on any side,
Just continuing to move.
Or there's the story of James Barris,
This teacher out in the Bay Area who has been teaching for 30 or 40 years and describes his experience of practicing with Joseph Goldstein back in the 70s and really deepening his practice and feeling like he really wanted to commit himself to this path,
But he had one problem.
He explained to Joseph that he was a huge New York Knicks fan and that he felt felt like if he were really to abandon himself to this practice,
He would also lose his affinity for the New York Knicks.
And he felt that was a choice he could not make.
So he went to Joseph with this problem.
And Joseph just laughed.
And he said,
No,
You can keep the Knicks.
That's fine.
He said,
In fact,
The good part is that the losses won't hurt as much.
So it's win-win.
It's completely win-win.
You The Buddha also described for each of the immeasurable qualities that has a near enemy.
So a near enemy,
Meaning that it's something that resembles,
Maybe even closely resembles that quality,
But is actually quite different.
And for equanimity,
The near enemy is indifference.
Indifference.
And I'll say for myself,
I spent a good part of my early adult life as a social activist,
And I have often struggled with equanimity for this reason,
Because in my own mind,
I sometimes hear this instruction.
Let all things be just as they are.
And something from my past rises up and says,
No!
I don't want to let all things be just as they are.
Probably as many of you,
I don't want climate change to be just as,
I don't want racism to be just as,
I don't want social inequality to be just as it is.
I mean,
The list,
I think,
Is very long.
But I think as I've grown in this,
I've come to understand It's not that.
It's not indifference.
It's not the near enemy.
And in fact,
It actually requires that you are,
As the log moving forward,
That you are committed to.
.
.
Actually,
It requires,
Just as the log is moving down the river,
That you be in motion.
That you be committed.
To things in the world.
And that principles or ideals that are motivating you and in fact The way that you sustain that commitment is through this non-attachment.
Is through this non-attachment,
That you don't let every loss or defeat feel like it's the end of the whole endeavor.
Shenzhen Yang said,
When feelings are experienced with equanimity,
They assure their proper function as motivators of behavior as opposed to distorters of behavior.
The Dalai Lama said,
The value of an action is judged not by its success or failure,
But the motivation behind it.
When a motivation is skillful.
Then we can abide in equanimity regardless of whether we succeed or fail in our endeavors.
So this feeling of things moving through us without the attachment,
Without the clinging or pushing away,
Or that sense of equanimity as being the looking over,
Not avoiding,
But looking over,
A sense of having that perspective,
A sense of some high plateau.
And it's true for larger commitments it's in life.
And it's also very true for relationships.
In a moment we'll practice with some of the traditional phrases,
But some of them are,
When thinking of another person,
I care for you.
I wish you well,
But ultimately,
You are in control of your happiness or unhappiness.
You are in control of your happiness or unhappiness.
Which allows us to remain committed to that person,
But with a sense of balance.
I know for myself.
One of my daughters struggles with addictions.
For a number of years,
And as parents,
You know,
You try to do everything humanly possible to help your children.
In this case,
For her to stay clean and sober.
But,
You know,
You can live through times in which your child's making very bad choices and it's devastating.
So you do everything you can but you somehow learn that you have to release your attachment of her life being a certain way.
You have to release yourself from that.
And you still provide all the support you can,
But that you realize that you're actually powerless over the ultimate result,
That you cannot control this ultimate result,
That she,
In this case,
Is in control of her happiness or unhappiness.
Here's a story from Ajahn Sujito,
Which is one of the most senior Western monks in this tradition.
He says,
I was visiting my older brother yesterday who has Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
He is unable to communicate.
I visit and obviously words aren't going to work.
So I just bring awareness over the situation.
Then I make bodily contact,
Gently touching his leg,
Massaging his hands,
Sensing the contact,
And then spreading awareness over the situation.
Situation with goodwill.
After a few minutes,
He starts to speak.
I can't make sense of what he's saying,
But at least he's encouraged to speak.
I'm just listening,
And I begin my loving kindness chant.
His other hand comes up and grabs hold of mine.
Three hands link together as I continue to chant.
I could feel the sense of ease and love feeling the energies of the body and heart linking up.
So even if his thinking brain dissolves,
You have a sense that you know that you're meeting this person.
There's a meeting place here,
And it's not up to me to make something happen.
You know you cannot cure this person.
You know you cannot change this person.
There's nothing that you can do or say,
However much you'd like to change things.
But he can still receive this energy,
Still receive kindness.
We're sitting there for about an hour or so,
And then gradually his hand becomes stronger.
I feel the sense of wanting to do something,
Of being a bit worried,
Or wanting to help him.
I just relax.
Everybody gets to the end of their life.
Sometimes people get to the end of their mind before they get to the end of their life.
But that doesn't mean you abandon them.
You just abandon your wish that they be something other than the way they are right now.
You'll meet them there.
Once you start doing this with people who are dying,
You can start to have this practice with those who are living.
And rather than trying to make them some way or another,
You just hold everything with awareness,
Love,
Kindness,
And trust.
They will see that.
And the best will come of it.
The third way to understand equanimity.
What's here without reactivity.
Or grasping.
Or pushing away.
Well,
First there's the mindfulness of all of these things happening.
The mindfulness of the grasping,
Of the pushing away of their activity.
And then the release from that.
Is a sense that you're not constrained or that you're not demanding that experience be anything other than it is.
That there is a fundamental okayness with what is happening.
It's the most basic experience of being alive,
That it's not some sort of meditative state,
But just being aware,
Awake,
As you watch the drama of life proceed,
And understanding that underneath that all,
You are naturally free.
So the instruction again,
Let all things be just as they are.
And that includes this,
You know,
This self,
That small self that wants to cling,
Or to push away,
Or to react,
Or to create a drama out of what's happening,
That you allow that little small self also just to be as it is.
I feel like when I get caught up in something,
That equanimity is like a little GPS that always when you lose your way,
It will start again from wherever you are.
It's like there's always a lot of forgiveness in driving directions,
Because no matter what wrong turn you make,
Then it's just like rerouting.
So we're going to reroute now.
Ha ha.
No judgement.
Even though he told you,
Even though he told you.
A few different times that you're supposed to turn.
There's no judgment.
We're rerouting.
That's all.
We'll get there,
You know.
And I feel like equanimity is sort of like that,
You know.
It's always willing to reroute.
It's always willing to rebreath.
Before we do this closing practice,
I'll tell you one more story.
This is from another teacher,
Francisco Murillo Gable,
Teaches out on the West Coast.
He says,
My father is in his 90s.
And he lives in the little house behind us.
It's a very special time because my father's health is declining very fast.
This man was one of the most independent,
Stalwart people you'd ever meet,
Who previously was not somebody I hugged.
Now,
I'm hugging him a lot because he wants me to hug him.
This is a man who's taught me to be the person I am.
One of the phrases that I learned from him is be dependable and entirely independent.
He has molded me this way for his entire life.
So for him,
To not be fully independent.
It's astonishing to witness.
Now he will hold my hand and he will start to cry.
Because I'm trained in equanimity and because he's raised me to be dependable.
I can hold him and I don't collapse with his difficult emotions.
I look at him and there's a space between us that's full of love and I'm able to hold his hand while he goes through these episodes and then we pick up and we keep going.
It's a gift to us and to our relationship that I'm not so overwhelmed by his sadness.
And then I can let him be and feel supported.
And the quality of equanimity is very strong,
With a lot of space.
And it's not detached.
It's very heartfelt,
The spacious love we can provide,
Trusting that things will always keep flowing in their own way towards where they're going to go,
Which is to resolving and dissolving and changing and manifesting in a new way for us.
I'd like to conclude with this short practice together.
And for this practice,
I'll use some of the traditional equanimity phrases.
You may be familiar with the loving kindness phrases,
May you be well,
May you be at ease,
And so forth.
So there are also phrases that can be used in equanimity practice.
I'll use some of them right now,
And then also add a few more contemporary ones at the end.
So you can just again,
Find a relaxed,
Way to sit.
Make any adjustments in your posture you'd like to for this practice and go back inside.
Close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so.
And calling to mind someone you care about who may be facing some difficulty or challenge.
Picturing that person for yourself.
Silently extending these phrases to them.
I wish you happiness and ease.
And understand that your journey is your own.
You are the owner of your own actions.
Your happiness or unhappiness.
I will care for you,
But cannot keep you from suffering.
Regardless of my well wishes,
Your happiness is in your hands.
May you be balanced and peaceful.
May you be balanced.
And peaceful.
And now turning to yourself and silently extending these wishes.
I am the owner of my own actions.
My own happiness or unhappiness.
This is my life.
May I meet it with ease and balance.
May I deeply accept this moment as it is.
May I be at peace with the way things are.
May I remain unshaken by life's rise and fall.
May I remain unshaken by life's rise and fall.
And feel into this sense of balance or ease.
Can locate in the body where you feel it.
Perhaps around the heart.
Maybe a lightness in the body or just a simplicity.
Whatever it is,
Just allow that sense.
Balance to sink in.
Feel how natural it is.
The rightness.
And concluding with these phrases,
May I fall in love with life as it is.
My actions.
Are my only true belonging.
May I see myself through the eyes of wisdom,
My life,
Just as it is.
And as you're ready,
You can come gently back.
