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Guided Meditation

Good morning. Oh yeah, we finally... I finally grasped all the technology this morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome to this moment.

Those people who are in the room, those people who are not in this room but in their own rooms, I invite you to join us all. All of us in this moment of just being here, just breathing. Just this. There's no time. There's no need to do anything. Take a deep breath, let it out, and just breathe. Just breathe. Let's just sit together.

My intention for this morning is not to lead a long meditation, but rather to invite you to lead your own moment of just here. So I won't be speaking much until later. Just be here. Just breathe. Wherever, whatever is conducive to feeling in this moment, that is what you do for now. For now, this person. This person, just be here, just as you are. And just breathe.

Give yourself over to just sinking into this moment.

As you sit here, recall this is what it is to be this person in this moment. This is this person sitting here, being here. This person. This body.

As you're sitting here, bring together all the threads of your experience into just breathing here. All the threads of your thoughts, just here. Bring them into the center of your body and feel this person. This is what it's like to be this person in this moment. Nothing else. Just breathe.

After this time, there may be some stillness in your body. Twitches, pains, irritations, but the not moving through space: stillness. Be aware of that stillness. The body is still. Know stillness.

Equanimity

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to now. Welcome to here.

What I want to talk about this morning is equanimity. Actually, the original title of my talk was "Equanimity in Times of Uncertainty." As I looked at that title this morning, I realized that uncertainty was not in my thoughts. It really wasn't about uncertainty, it was about what equanimity is. What is it we mean when we say, "I would like to be equanimous," or "I would like to realize equanimity in my life"?

Before I begin, I want to give a thank you to the people that I have met who participate in the online dharma practice groups. Because their questions, their comments, and their inviting me into their practice and their lives stimulates thoughts and reflections. Their words reverberate in my mind and in my practice. And I've thought about that in terms of equanimity when I woke up this morning. I thought, "What is it that I really, really want to say?" You know, I had a long prepared talk with all kinds of things in it, but what I really want is for everyone to understand what equanimity means in life. Why do we value it? What's important about it?

I'm going to give you a quote from Gil. It was in an article he wrote about equanimity: "Equanimity, one of the most sublime emotions of Buddhist practice, is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love."

Equanimity, when seen this way, is less a state to be achieved, but a way of being with our experience. It is a way of being and not something that smooths over how we are, or what our experiences are. There's a suppleness to equanimity. Equanimity is not rigid. It is not defined in terms of characteristics where you know, "Okay, you're there." It really is a way of just meeting experience. What is it that allows us to meet experience and not be blown away by whatever that experience is?

One of the things we think about equanimity is that it's most accessible on retreat, right? You're going to get calm, you settle into your meditation, and everything is beginning to get rosy—or not, or you're experiencing an aversion retreat. But then equanimity is what arises and you say, "Aha! Now that none of this is bothering me, I can be in this state of evenness."

But equanimity shows up in all kinds of Buddhist lists. It's in the Seven Factors of Enlightenment^[1], the Four Brahmaviharas^[2], and the Ten Paramis^[3]. And it's the fourth jhāna^[4] factor of concentration. The thing about equanimity is it comes after mindfulness, comes after concentration. It comes after joy, after tranquility. It comes after all of these things we practice toward. And the qualities of equanimity have to do with presence with the experience, clarity, and ease. A lack of struggle. So, of course, it makes no sense to struggle to become equanimous.

But what does it mean, this presence and clarity and ease? What do I mean by presence? What is presence?

Someone asked me who were the teachers that influenced me in my practice. This is really a marvelous question. Not only who were they, but why was I influenced by them? What about them caused me to be motivated in practice? Presence was one of them. Surprisingly to me, I hadn't thought of it quite that way. One of the earliest experiences I had was going to a bookstore and Sylvia Boorstein was talking about her book, That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist. So that'll give you an idea, it was twenty-five plus years ago. What I noticed about her as she was talking about her book was that she had no wrinkles in her forehead. She was totally at ease. She did not seem to be concerned about anything. And I thought, "Wow, I want that. I want that, just here in the room."

Another experience was going to see the Dalai Lama. There was a large conference in San Francisco, over two thousand people, and it was on peace. The theme was, "For peace in the world, you begin with peace in your heart, and then peace in the family, and then peace in your community, and then peace in the larger community, and peace in the world." That it all began with you. And as I was listening to him over the course of the week, at how he exchanged views with people, what became really clear to me was that everyone in the room felt like he was looking directly at them and seeing them. His presence, his "being-there-ness" was so strong that you could feel it across a room with two thousand other people. Everyone thought that. It wasn't a projection of guru-ism onto him, it was really feeling seen.

And that presence, when we experience presence, we are fully engaged in whatever the experience is that is happening here. This person who's showing up with these conditions, in these conditions, this conditioning. This person, however it is, is fully engaged in this moment. This one, this person. You are in this moment. This is what it means to be alive. Normally we get lost in our thoughts, and the thoughts are off over here and the body is here, and sometimes we're slightly aware of the body. What are we aware of? What is it that I actually know about this moment? The presence of total immersion in just this.

This, however irritating or sweet, or whatever emotions come up in the midst of it, whatever bodily twitches... this is totally in this moment. This is the experience this body is having. In conversation, the other person is contributing to whatever the experience is. Are you there for that, or is the mind off wondering what you're going to say in response? Presence. The absoluteness of just being aware of this experience. This is presence. To embody presence is to just be in it.

The second item was clarity. I spend a great deal of my time talking about seeing clearly. When I went through this talk that I created and went down all the pieces of it, I found I must have written "seeing clearly" twenty times. I thought, "Okay, so that means something to you. What does it mean to everyone else?" It reminds me of a Zen teacher one time who always told this particular story at least once a year. I sat with him for maybe ten or fifteen years, and every year he told the story about the monk that turned into a fox. I asked him one day why this story was important to him, and he looked really surprised. I said, "But you tell it all the time, it has real meaning for you." And he told me what it was. But in the process of that, I understood that the seeing clearly part has to do with knowing the honesty of what's actually happening in this moment.

We think we know what's going on and we apply a name to it. We note and we say, "Oh, it's this," and then we dismiss it. But seeing clearly has to do with saying, "What else is true about that?" This becomes very obvious when you're talking to somebody and you hear what they say and you form an opinion about what they say, and then you no longer hear what else they're saying because you know already. Or do you?

I was inspired by a book of poems that a friend sent me. This is by Ada Limón, a new book of poetry of hers called The Hurting Kind. The piece is called "Calling Things What They Are." Seems fitting, right?

I pass the feeder and yell, "Grackle party!" and then an hour later I yell, "Mourning dove after-party!" I call the feeder the party and the seed on the ground the after-party. I’m getting so good at watching that I’ve even dug out the binoculars an old poet gave me back when I was young and heading to the Cape with so much future ahead of me it was like my own ocean. "Tufted titmouse!" I yell, and Lucas laughs and says, "Thought so." But he's humoring me; he didn't think so at all. My father does this same thing, shouts out at the feeder, announcing the party attendees. He throws a whole peanut or two to the Steller's jay who visits on a low oak branch in the morning. To think there was a time I thought birds were kind of boring. Brown bird, gray bird, black bird, blah, blah, blah bird. Then I started to learn their names by the ocean, and the person I was dating said, "That's the problem with you, Limón, you're all fauna, no flora." And I began to learn the name of trees. I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love. How it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn't know then that it wasn't even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.

"How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain." This is what seeing clearly is about. We have these ways of thinking about what's happening in our experience, and we get kind of entrained with that way of thinking. "Oh yeah, love is glorious, it keeps everything exciting," right? Well, maybe it wasn't really love. Maybe it was something else. And becoming enamored of one's own pain is not uncommon. It's familiar. "Oh, life is so difficult," and pretty soon everything falls into that quarter of life is so difficult.

In the last week or two, there's been a lot of trauma in my immediate family. Health-related issues for various people. I myself was worried that I might have had COVID, and I was waiting to take my PCR test. There's all that unlimited free thinking about, "Oh my god, everything's falling apart." You have this feeling that everything's falling apart. But it isn't falling apart, it's just happening rapid fire. It appears to be like this. But how is it really?

Also during the week, it turned out my grandson had COVID, and so he couldn't finish the last week of school, which was very upsetting for him. He's nine. And I got to read to him every afternoon by Zoom for two hours, which is a long time to read a kid's book and sound enthusiastic and bright and carry on the meaning in your tone of voice and how delightful it was. Now, it isn't that I was finding delight in the midst of pain and agony and sorrow, but rather that both things were present. If I focused on "poor Malcolm," I would not be able to focus on the delight of telling this mystery story about these little kids in this book. I couldn't have engaged in the moment because I would have been so worried about how he's feeling, how he's taking it in. Which seems like a very compassionate act, but is it?

Whereas the total engagement in just this proved to be just delightful for both of us. Truly delightful. He was very eagerly setting up the next appointment. "Well, let's do it at two tomorrow." "No, let's do it at 2:30 because I have to finish my movie." Just the excitement of just this. And how exciting that is to be engaged in the moment and not focused on what could be wrong or what might be wrong. And needless to say, my PCR was negative, or I wouldn't be here. [Laughter]

The moments where we believe we know what's going on are the very moments to say, "Really? What is it that's happening?" It is this seeing clearly into what my first impressions are and what that means to me now. It's realizing that experience does not have to be tied into meaning. It doesn't have to be tied into meaning. The mind wants to make a story of our experience. It's a continuing story, but this is the only thing that's happening right now. My life in the past has not happened to me right now.

This morning I'm planning to go up to Seattle to visit another very new, ill grandson. It's at the University of Washington, and so I thought of a friend of mine who works there. Somebody that I went to graduate school with; he was a postdoc, I was in graduate school, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be delightful to see him?" Thoughts kept coming up from forty years ago, which are not about now. And I watched the mind go back to those stories. "I wonder what he's like now?" And I reflected that I am nothing like I was then. This person is totally different. Really different. However other characteristics may be true.

Equanimity is an intersection of suffering, identity with self, and ease. To see how they intersect with impermanence. The ease of impermanence. When you really engage in impermanence, you stop building meaning around every experience you have. It's just the experience. It's just the experience.

Finally, the other thing had to do with struggle and ease. I was thinking about that this morning as I was walking calmly through my house reviewing in my mind what I was going to say. I had ten minutes. I was going along, next thing I knew fifteen minutes had passed, and I thought, "Ah, I will arrive later than I intended to arrive." Now, there's a couple of ways of thinking about that. One is "I'm going to be late," and the other is "I'm going to arrive later than I intended." The difference between them is seeing this is what's happening and saying, "I need to move with alacrity," versus "I'm rushing." Rushing has that sense of urgency and "I have to change what's true." "I need to move with alacrity" is, "Ah, time to move." The difference between them has to do with how much I am struggling with how things are. How things are. What is the struggle with how things are? It's not saying that being later than I intended is good. It's just how it is. It's neither good nor bad. I don't even have to say it's okay, it just is. That's all. That is what it is, not to struggle. That it's just like this.

Uncertainty can be unpleasant: "Oh dear, I don't know what's going to happen." Or it can be exciting: "Oh, what's going to come next?" It's still uncertainty. The attitude that we bring to it, that we impose on the experience, changes how we see it and how the experience then is conditioned into the next moment. The difference between loneliness and solitude usually turns out to be whether it was your idea or not. [Laughter]

Equanimity arises out of clear seeing and the absence of taking it personally. The absence of saying, "This is about the story of my life." It's useful when you think about equanimity to consider when equanimity is not present. When do I not feel the stability of being in this moment? Because that is a key factor: stability of mind.

What's generally true is that we get pulled around in life through the Eight Worldly Winds^[5]. You know, praise and blame, pain and pleasure, gain and loss, fame and disrepute. This morning as I was sitting here, there's a new thing that has occurred in the last few months in my sitting practice which could be considered annoying. And that is, as I settle in, my jaw starts doing involuntary movement. It just moves, quivers, moves back and forth. The first time this happened I was just surprised, and now I'm still surprised. I still go, "Oh, what is that?" And the mind wants to make meaning around it. It may be I've been storing things in my jaw all my life, the tension of life, and it's slowly working its way out. It may be something medical. Who knows? What's true is it quivers.

And as I was sitting here, I wondered, "What does that look like in a mask? Does that move back and forth? Is that strange?" And then I thought, "Ah, working on fame and disrepute. I'm going to look like I don't know what I'm doing up here." [Laughter] I watched that comment, I laughed. I said, "Oh, it's easy, that comes up all the time." Things like that come up. What's important is to be able to see when they come up. That's the clear seeing part. "Oh, I'm trying to establish blame for why this happened. I'm going to blame AT&T or pick somebody to blame." Pick yourself to blame, that's where self-criticism comes in. It's being blown to the side.

What equanimity represents is the suppleness of mind, the stability of mind, that takes it in and stays here. Takes it in. It doesn't have to run off and fix it or change it or be blown away by it, but just be here.

There are two words that the Buddha used when he talked about equanimity. One of them was upekkhā^[6]. The other one, I have to look up here because it's really something I stumble over. Upekkhā has to do with "seeing over." It has the components of the word for seeing over. So in equanimity there is a broad view where you're not upset by the ups and downs. You become very aware of the coming and going of all things, and looking out over that allows you to not be blown away by it. I may not be able to find this word, I apologize. But I am... oh, there it is! It is tatramajjhattatā^[7]. It's a combination of Pali words, and it means "to stand in the middle of all this." To stand in the middle. So standing in the middle is not a rigid standing, but it is saying, "In order to be in equanimity, everything must be included."

It's not about being a better person so that you can be equanimous. About having a better practice so you can be equanimous. It's about showing up with this person in this moment and having the flexibility, the stability of mind to just say, "This is what's happening in this moment. Ah." And when you see clearly, you can take the intentions that you have. You can recall your intention in life and take the next step. It is about choosing as opposed to reactivity.

So yes, equanimity in meditation is quite lovely. Equanimity when you're out in the world with everything happening around you is also quite lovely. It's a recalling to, "Okay, it's like this. It's like this." And that recalling allows us not to be blown away by the Eight Worldly Winds. It allows us to be present for, "Okay, here's how it is now. I am still here." The presence of "I am still here," and I can see this is what's happening.

It involves integrity, honesty, brutal honesty. It's seeing when what you think is love is really pain. It is just being really honest. I see things coming and going. I understand that things arise and pass away. They don't have some specific meaning. It is not about me. It's just what's happening here. And I have the stability and presence of mind to allow that to be true.

It turns out there are all kinds of prescriptions for how one cultivates equanimity, but it seems to me equanimity is really a quality of practice. When that practice is incorporated into the moment, it arises by a fierce attention to presence and seeing clearly. And that ferocity has to come with an open, soft heart. Because otherwise, we are rigid and unfeeling and insensitive to what's happening. So the very things that hurt us, that rub our raw spots, are the places that remind us how alive we are. How in the moment we are. And need to be included. "Oh, this is what's happening."

There is equanimity of practice. How many of you have heard of equanimity practice? It's similar to mettā^[8] in which you repeat certain phrases that are intended to bring your mind into the space where you can actually experience what it is you're talking about. I do this practice routinely. I have for many years, because it calls to mind the importance of the clarity of seeing that is so essential. Things as they are. So I'm just going to go through my phrases:

I am heir to my own karma. My suffering depends on my intentions and my actions, not what others wish. Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. May I see things just as they are. May I meet the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance.

I am heir to my own karma. My suffering or lack of suffering depends on my own intentions and actions, not what others may think. Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. May I see things just as they are. May I meet the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance.

Now those are just my phrases. I've said them over and over and over for years. I repeat them to myself when I'm doing walking meditation to bring the mind in. "See clearly. See clearly." And what's happened over the years as I repeat these phrases to myself is I come to develop a kind of insight, which is a deep understanding of what those words actually mean.

It was that that caused me to wake up this morning saying, "What is it about equanimity I really want to say?" You know, I could go through all these lists, do this, do that, cultivate it this way. But what's true is that we need to learn to experience and recognize when we are solidly present. When we are seeing clearly, and when we are not struggling.

I started the story about the difference between rushing and not rushing. Moving quickly and rushing. As I was driving along I thought, "This is really interesting. I know the difference between wishing I was further along and leaning over the steering wheel, and I'm just driving. I'm just going there." And I watch the urgency come into my mind, and I let the urgency go and say, "This is not life or death."

So I've become suspicious of urgency in my life. When I feel like "this has to happen now" or "really, does this have to happen now?" What is happening now? This often happens in conversations with my husband. We'll be talking about something and I'll get enthusiastic about something, and his mind is on something else he's thinking about. I'm thinking about our upcoming road trip; he's thinking about the paper he's writing on an ecological subject to support somebody's case with—I think this is the water sanitary district, I don't know. His mind is there, my mind is here. We're having a conversation. He finally says, "I really can't take in anymore." And I can feel the urgency of just this: the end of the sentence. "I have to just say the end of the sentence!" And I just stop. This is not urgent. It's just a sentence. And to feel the ease arise in that... that is experiencing equanimity in the midst of triviality.

What's important about equanimity is that it is not inaccessible to you. It is totally accessible. What's required is presence, seeing clearly, and not struggling.

I'm not saying that nothing comes up in life that we don't struggle against. It happens daily. It's to recognize the struggle and to say, "How does this fit with my intentions? And what's my next step?" Not two minutes from now or next week, what's my next step? "I'm going to finish my coffee and then move." There is a patience that gets built in when you let go of urgency.

Just be here. Just be here.

So I'm going to read you yet another poem to close. This is called "Proof." Everybody likes proof, right?

A kestrel eyes us from a high thin branch, and my husband is surprised it can hold the hunter’s weight. "He’s small," I say. My husband says, "He’s large." Obviously depends on what you compare him to: a hawk, a white-crowned sparrow, a ghost, an abstraction. He looms not large to me but significant, a standout, something cool about him that says today is the day to test his mettle in the mid-morning air flush with dead leaves and the ongoingness of rusted mums. A surge of relief comes like a check in the mail. Look, I’ve already witnessed something other than my slipping face in the fogged mirror, the dog’s sweet seriousness at being worshipped from nose to paw. I have proof a nearly twig-like branch can still hold a too-heavy falcon. It’s not much to go on, I know.

It's not much to go on, I know.

Don't belittle any of your experiences. Equanimity has built into it a piece of hope. It is the hope that comes from the ease of just this. The end of struggle is to let go of struggle. It's not much to go on, I know. But the result is living a full, engaged life. It is about being alive. And this moment is what we have to be alive in. This one.

I wish all of you the ease of a supple mind, a stable mind, a mind that's able to come into the presence of now so that you can know equanimity not as an idea or an abstraction, but as a way of being with things as they are. Thank you.