This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Steadiness

Hello and welcome to this meditation. We're doing the equanimity Brahma-vihāra^[1], which means the equanimity that is rooted in love, the love that's rooted in equanimity. And the word for that is upekkhā^[2], which means to kind of gaze upon. So, to gaze upon people, gaze upon the world with love. To gaze upon oneself with love. An equanimous love.

There's another word that is translated sometimes as equanimity that is a wonderful support for this gazing with equanimous love. The Pali word is three very simple, ordinary words that come out to a long word that sounds difficult: tatramajjhattatā^[3]. It means standing in the middle of this or stationed in the middle of this. Some people translate it as balance. Some people translate it as stability.

But to be stable, there's a long history of people using the image of a mountain to represent the body sitting in meditation. Stable, upright, with a wide base if you're sitting cross-legged. Having a stability that helps us, and steadiness, and maybe sometimes uprightness, where we're not going towards or away from anything. We're not tightening up or pulling back. We're just present. We're rooted. As if being rooted here is the protection. Being rooted here allows us to gaze upon everything peacefully. Gaze upon everything with love. As if there's a real sense of groundedness. The ground supports us. The ground holds us up. The ground protects us.

And then the stability of the spine and a steadiness. The spine is stationed upright with some strength. If the back allows for it, to find a way to sit that's not only relaxed with the spine, but has a certain kind of feeling that now the spine is alive. It's present, and it's involved in the meditation. It's stable. There's a stability there. There's a holding itself steady and strong, even a kind of confidence.

And the mind becoming steady, deeply rooted, and grounded often comes with the feeling of lightness, a feeling of settledness. Almost like the center of gravity of the mind begins to shift from the top of the head downward, settling and settling. So, to be stable, balanced.

So, to begin, maybe closing the eyes or lowering the gaze. Feel your body. Feel the weight of your body against the surface that holds it up from the pull of gravity. Your chair, your cushion, the floor. Your bed.

And maybe imagining yourself in your posture to be like a mountain with a solid base. A mountain that doesn't move in a strong wind. And as you let your attention drop into the lower part of your body, where does it feel most grounded? Most rooted?

An image that's also used is imagining deep roots that go down into the earth. It holds you stable and steady. Grounded.

And feeling the base of your spine, maybe the tailbone area. Unless it's painful, maybe feel whatever degree of stability, weight, and rootedness is there. The base of your spine. Breathing into it. Breathing with it.

And then seeing if there's gently a steadiness or a standing tall or firm that travels up your spine. Maybe up to the place between your shoulder blades.

And feeling globally in your body whatever stability or steadiness is physically present for you. You might feel unsteady and imbalanced in some ways, but for now, look for the places where there are feelings of stability, steadiness. Maybe your hands face down on your thighs. Maybe softening the belly and letting there be a settling there.

And then feeling that stability, groundedness. Rootedness here. Is any of that pleasant? Is there any pleasure, goodness, rightness, or assurance that comes from feeling that stability?

Let that be a reference point now for mindful breathing. Maybe breathing through or with the stability, the steadiness. Or the groundedness is the source from which the inhale begins, and the exhale returns. Inviting the thinking mind to become quieter. So the mind, too, relaxes into the steadiness, into the assurance.

May there be some feeling of stability, groundedness, and balance that can be reassuring for staying present here now.

Feeling where the strongest sensations of stability and steadiness are in your body. Groundedness. And spreading your awareness to see how that stability and groundedness spreads outward into the rest of your body. Is there a soft spread of sensations, or a glow, a gentle vibration, a gentle reassurance?

Allow yourself to be settled or rooted in this inner physical stability. Might it allow you to gaze upon things calmly, to gaze upon your experience here and now with a calm steadiness, an openness that's balanced, not caught in for and against? A steady, soft gaze that almost floats between the different things that you gaze upon.

Might it be possible for that gaze to be a gaze of love, a gaze of kindness, goodwill, and compassion? A simple love supported by the inner stability. A love that needs nothing, that wants nothing. A love which is private, so you don't have to be accountable for it or show that it's any particular form of love, just your way to gaze upon the world with love.

And as we come to the end of this sitting, to turn that quiet, stable, grounded gaze out across the land. To include the people in your lives, family and friends, colleagues, neighbors. To include people across the land and around the globe. Gazing upon it all with a balanced, equanimous love. Without fear, without anxiety.

And from this equanimous love, to wish wellness to everyone. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may we offer this in whatever small way we can, simply by how we stay present, balanced, stable, and present for the world, gazing upon the world with equanimous love. Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (68) Balanced Love

So, hello and welcome to this talk on equanimous love.

This is the fourth introductory talk on this topic, preparing to really dip into a deeper meditation on upekkhā, the Pali word for this equanimous love. A loving equanimity.

One of the ways that equanimity is manifest is as a non-reactivity, as a not leaning forward and back, but being stable and steady here in the present moment. And there is an ancient Buddhist word in Pali that refers to this. Sometimes it's actually translated as equanimity, but in Pali, it means "standing in the middle of this." This here, standing in the middle of this here.

To have this balance, that steadiness, sometimes this equanimous love is—there's an analogy for it—like standing on a hilltop above the fray, above the busy, maybe even agitated city below. Seeing people rushing around and arguing about maybe the market, about prices, or whatever it might be, in the old [unintelligible].

From the hilltop, you're not involved in any of the drama of the town below, but you are able to gaze upon all of it with love. From the hilltop, it's not the time to do something for anyone. It's not the time to go down and help anyone. But there's something profound about gazing upon the human condition from the hilltop, seeing the hustle and bustle, the movements about, all the drama.

That's a little bit like a grandparent or great-grandparent who's seen so much in life, sitting on a park bench on a hilltop and looking down at an elementary schoolyard or a kindergarten playground where kids are playing during recess. All this drama happens there. But knowing that this is what happens, gazing upon it equanimously, not getting caught in the same dramas that the kids are caught in—the fights and the loves and so on.

So, this ability to gaze upon things is supported by stability. And this is where our body is a great support. If we can stay connected to our body, and not only connect to it, but feel and hold the body, be in the body in a way that brings stability and steadiness.

This is as opposed to being disconnected from the body, being up in the head while the body takes whatever posture the head puts it in. The body isn't really present, or isn't offering any reassuring strength that things are okay and stable. And so, the tumbleweed of the mind just kind of rolls around freely, and we can feel quite impacted by the world, quite tender, quite fragile.

That begins to change if we can learn to really trust our body to provide stability and balance. Sometimes in daily life and in meditation, it can come from how we position the body. Sometimes the way we sit in the chair or the way we stand is with crossed legs and arms, maybe sitting askew, so that the torso is twisted or leaning in one direction, or collapsed. And the body is not a steadiness, a stability.

But to take a posture that's upright, with the sitting bones stable in the chair, or both soles firmly on the ground. Maybe even opening the chest, standing a little bit straight and tall. In your own way, to place the body in a clear, conscious, intentional posture that allows you to feel some stability in the body.

And if it's helpful to have some external support, that's great. It could be that you stand behind a chair and put your hands on the backrest. It could be that you feel more stable if you have a railing next to you or something that you can hold on to or be with. Anything that allows you to feel like you can stand upright and tall and balanced. Some people doing sitting meditation in chairs will actually feel more stable if they have an armrest and put their hands up on it, and it just kind of grounds them.

So there are many different ways people can do it, but recruit the body and the posture as a place to discover and feel grounded and steady. Know where in your body you most easily connect to that. Is it the soles of the feet as you're standing, feeling the ground? Is it the sitting bones? Is it somehow in the lower torso? Is it the spine?

And then call on that. Remember that. Feel that in times of challenge, in times when you feel unstable, or in times when you get caught and reactive—come back.

The breathing is very useful for this. There's something about consciously, intentionally breathing with or through whatever physical stability, steadiness, and groundedness we can find. Just let go into it, or breathe and be reminded of it, letting the breathing be steady. A steady rhythm that's nice and supportive. Maybe taking three comfortably deeper breaths, and relaxing into a longer exhale. Let the exhale be a little longer than usual. Feel like you're doing it in a steady way. There's a steady rhythm to those three breaths that's reassuring.

And so, whether you do this consciously as an exercise, or you allow it to happen in meditation by itself, meditation does bring a strong feeling of stability, steadiness, rootedness, groundedness. A real strong feeling in the whole body of "Yes, I'm here. No doubt about it. No question." The sense of being really here is a strong sense. It's almost like a strong phenomenon that's reminding us it's part of our sense of being alive, providing a very different reference point than not having that.

And then from there, maybe we can tap into an equanimous love, a warmth, a deep appreciation, a delight, a deep kindness for others that has some of those qualities of steadiness. It has the quality of equanimity, the quality of balance, where it's not leaning forward and back. It's not caught up in ideas of shoulds and shouldn'ts, not ideas of "I can't" and "I can," just allowing this love to be there. Gazing upon the world kindly.

And so, upekkhā, the word for this kind of love, can mean to gaze upon, to look upon. One of the ways that brings this kind of stability is to look upon things with wisdom, and that's the topic for tomorrow. But for today, it's looking upon things with balance—physical balance, emotional balance, mental balance. Looking upon things with a kind of comfort that comes from knowing that we have nothing, at least for this day since we woke up, to regret. Nothing to be embarrassed about because I broke a precept^[4]. This day, I can rest and gaze upon the world kindly because I can rest in my balanced being.

So, you might want to think about or practice this through the day. You might see there are all kinds of moments through the day where you're waiting for something, nothing's happening. You could pull out your phone, look at it, and read very important emails or news bulletins. Or you could spend time standing, sitting, closing your eyes, coming back to the place of balance. Come back to a place of steadiness. Come back to that place of rootedness here and now.

Just kind of periodically sprinkle it through the day, coming back to it, coming back to it. Be there. And see what happens if you allow that to be a theme of the day, something that's going to inform you and have an influence on you through the day because you keep going back to it.

To become familiar with what that's like, and to not give it up or abandon that sense of stability and steadiness easily, is going to be a very important foundation for upekkhā, equanimous love.

So, thank you very much, and I look forward to continuing tomorrow.