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: Resting in Goodness

Welcome all. It's sweet to see the names streaming through. I'm happy to be with you, and that's it.

Just as you take your posture, have a sense of your body, remembering all the practice you've done, all the goodness you've nurtured, all the letting go, and the patience, the equanimity, all the stillness, all the determination. Just getting a little sense of the wholeness of that karmic stream.

And of course, we can trace that back further, not just our life, but we're here because of the lineage of understanding, of love, of compassion. We're beneficiaries, and also will be causes for more goodness in this stream of Dhamma^[1].

Just feeling into the blessings of this path. It could have been otherwise. We could have lived a whole life never listening to the voices of longing within us, longing to be free. As we contemplate this kind of blessing, gratitude, things get quiet, still.

Perhaps you make the soundscape, the field of sound and silence, the object of attention^[2]. There are all the outer sounds, sounds from wherever you are, the sound of my voice. But also the inner sounds that we usually just call thinking. Let's just make the entire soundscape one field, not distinguishing so much inner sounds, outer sounds, and also those moments of silence.

The heart cannot rest in its clinging^[3]. So we relax. We surrender to the imperfection, the human condition. We find ways of giving the heart some rest because so much^[4] is asked of our heart. It's not indulgent or self-serving to let it rest^[5].

Equanimity (5 of 5):

Welcome once again. So, the last reflection in this series on equanimity.

I saw a couple of bumper stickers recently that I liked a lot. The first one was on a station wagon, and it had a black background with white letters, and it just said, "I used to be cool." What does that have to do with equanimity? I don't know, not much. That doesn't really tie in maybe to yesterday's theme, but I just liked that bumper sticker and wanted to share that with you.

The other one, this one is very relevant for today. It said, "Cynicism is obedience." Cynicism is obedience.

One of the most common misconceptions about equanimity is that it's a form of indifference or passivity, or maybe even cynicism. But equanimity is not about the future. In a sense, it's not even really about the present; it's about accepting what has already arisen, what has come to pass. That moment of the very recent past that is here, can we open to that? That this is the fruit of this moment. And a moment of deep equanimity now does not imply passivity in the next moment.

Passivity or action, that is really another question. It's not actually so closely linked to the question of equanimity, the practice of equanimity. Again, Shinzen Young^[6] says: "Equanimity involves non-interference with the natural flow of sensory experience. Apathy implies indifference to the controllable outcome of objective events."

Now, this is an important clarification, and some of the confusion comes because we extrapolate meditation instructions as instructions for life. Some of the things we say during a guided meditation are indeed instructions for living, but some aren't. In guided meditations, I never say, "Okay, now breathe out, and at the end of your exhale, scratch anything and everything that itches." That's not an instruction we tend to give. But if I were doing some life coaching, I would tell you, "Most of the time, when you have an itch, scratch it."

Meditation instructions are a training ground. They're a cultivation of these beautiful qualities of the heart, but they can't all be easily extrapolated to all conditions, the complexities of being human. When we're teaching, we're desperate; we'll say whatever we can to support non-clinging, love, determination. And those instructions have an important place when we gather here to practice together, but they can't be traced out in a linear way to all of life.

When equanimity matures, it enlivens rather than dampens our commitments to alleviating suffering. And the poignancy of feeling that I described a couple of days ago, that sticks to our bones. In the cauldron of experience, equanimity meeting dukkha^[7], our life becomes much less melodramatic but more and more poignant. There's a lot of feeling; the heart moves easily, but it's surrounded by tranquilizing factors. The depth of feeling occurs in an ambiance of years of tranquility, of equanimity.

The Buddha was worried about nihilism. There are meditative experiences that can tend towards that way—experiences where all sensory impressions have one taste. It's like the world is a gust of wind, and we're like a gust of wind, all phenomena just blowing through space, blowing through emptiness. One might get the impression amidst that that it's all the same, and in this way, nothing matters. But the Buddha found the middle path between extremes: between "everything means everything" and "nothing means anything."

When everything means everything, you can't stop caring, you can't stop worrying, you can't stop giving. You can't justify even a moment's rest. And when nothing means anything, love dissolves, and all goodness is at risk.

So equanimity, one way of thinking about it is that it purifies our compassion. It makes it less compulsive, less codependent, less grandiose, less self-righteous. Equanimity purifies our compassion, our care. We see that actions arising from equanimity—from this non-interference with what has arisen—are more potent and have greater moral force than actions arising from clinging^[8].

Our heart needs to rest. It can't always be in a state of openness. Like a blossom, it cannot stay open for all seasons. When we feel like too much might be asked of our heart, we shut down. When we feel like the demands are too much, we actually shut down. Shown one child who's hungry, we humans get very generous. Shown a thousand, we start to shut down.

And of course, I'm here to tell you there are a thousand. A thousand thousand. And can we open to this? Can compassion meet that fully, full-heartedly, radically? Their pain permeating our heart, their pain spurring action, their pain being moralized, being a concern for us even though we might be separated by space or by time.

But we can only open to the depth of need, we can only open with compassion, when we also trust that the heart can rest in equanimity too. We are less intimidated by the enormity of dukkha. We're more willing to spend our well-being, to spend our love on others, because we know there's peace too. And we know that peace is the only state that doesn't fatigue the heart. Peace is the only state that doesn't need its seasons. And so we have a place to rest. And then we open again, we love deeply again, we leave it all on the floor, and then rest again.

The philosopher Derek Parfit^[9]: "If we are the only rational beings in the universe, as some evidence suggests, it matters even more whether we shall have descendants or successors during the billions of years in which that would be possible. Some of our successors might live lives and create worlds that, though failing to justify past suffering, would give us all, including some of those who have suffered, reasons to be glad that the universe exists."

May we find those reasons. May we love well and rest deeply.

Thank you all. Thank you for this week, your practice, many of you over not just this week but months, a year plus. I'm honored to have been with you, and it was nurturing for my own heart to reflect on these themes. I wish you all well. You'll be back, the plan is for Monday. Thank you all, and thank you Kevin for DJing the whole thing, and I'll see you around the Dharma campus somewhere.