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Introduction

Warm greetings and welcome to this meditation session. As an introduction to the meditation, I mentioned that the theme for this week is equanimity^[1]—particularly the kind of love that has a quality of equanimity in it. In talking about equanimity, one of the things that we can lose equanimity around is if we're operating too much from conceit^[2]. If we are operating too much from holding onto some fixed idea of who we are, who we should be, or who we shouldn't be, there's something about that hardness, or that grasping to those conceits, that makes us easily agitated, easily restless, and easily reactive to what's going on.

One of the movements in Buddhist meditation is called "lowering the flag of conceit." There is this ancient metaphor of likening conceit with a flag that's held up high. I believe it's a little bit of a war metaphor. Maybe it's like capture the flag: if one person is holding the flag, then the other team will be really trying to get to that person. But if they put the flag down, then they don't care so much about that person. If you're holding up the war banner for your army, then the other army is going to go after you.

Perhaps a less war-like metaphor is that of an open window. If you throw a baseball through a closed window, the window will break, but if the window is open, the ball just goes right through. To lower the flag, to not have something that can be attacked within, is to not have something that is struck by the words and actions that people have towards us. It is to have an open window, where things just go right through; they don't land anywhere or strike anything within. In particular, this is the absence of conceit, the absence of self-preoccupation and self-definition. There is a lot more equanimity then, and things will just go right by. It is kind of like yesterday's metaphor of the boat, where the water just washes off the hull^[3] of the boat and is left behind.

To sit and meditate without conceit is to sit and meditate with the windows wide open, where nothing has anywhere to land. It doesn't strike anywhere. A thought, a feeling—all kinds of things might arise, but just let them arise and go, let them wash right by. Imagine yourself as just an open window with vast space in front and vast space behind, where things just pass right through. Then the mind and the heart can be at ease. They can be equanimous with what arises and passes.

Guided Meditation: Equanimity as Open Space

Take a meditation posture. A posture that hopefully will allow you to feel and recognize that some part of you is alert, that some part of you has a certain energy of presence and engagement. In some way, this means being careful that you're not too comfortable, but also being careful that you're not too uncomfortable. I think an ideal would be a happy middle way where we're no longer concerned with any discomfort and no longer involved with any comfort. We're just here, unconcerned with comfort or discomfort, but alert and present.

Gently close your eyes and take a deep breath. Gently settle your heart. As you exhale, settle the upward activated energy, if you have that in your body or in your heart, so that your sense of energy or activation in the body settles down. This allows your whole system to come to rest on the foundation of your lower torso. Feel the lower torso if you're sitting. If you're lying down, feel your back rib cage and your spine—the places that receive the weight of your body. As you exhale, let go into that. Relax into that.

Take a few long, slow, deep breaths. Then soften the shoulders, soften the belly. Release yourself to the pull of gravity while sitting upright. Let your breathing return to normal. On the exhale, continue the process of relaxing both the surface muscles of your body and also deep inside. As deep as you can feel or sense where there is holding or activation. If you feel some tension or activation that doesn't relax, that's okay. Soften around it.

Soften the muscles of your face, and soften your eyes. Maybe letting the eyes, in a sense, look backwards and down if that is more restful. There is no need to be looking at anything. Notice any tension, activation, or pressure in the area of your brain, forehead, temples, sides of your skull, and inside your skull. Then^[4] for a few breaths, breathe with that activation, that tension. See if you can relax the brain, that whole area, the thinking muscle. Give your brain and your thinking a rest from trying, doing, and making something happen. We are always thinking so much.

Now really become aware again of the body breathing. In a sense, have your awareness join the rhythm of breathing. Breathing in and breathing out. Imagine that as you breathe, all the rest of you is like a big window that opens. An open window through which the rhythm of breathing in and breathing out flows. With the help of your breathing, imagine as if breathing is the window with well-lubricated hinges that just opens easily and stays open.

Whatever arises, instead of it hitting anything, or being a concern, or being something to react to or be involved in, imagine that it just travels through the open window of your being. With vast space in front of you, vast space behind you, vast space above you, and below you. In you is an open window, and things just pass through. There is no need to be involved, react, judge, or compare. There is no need to relate it to conceit, or to self^[5], or to "me, myself, and mine"^[6]. Whatever occurs does not need to be taken personally. It's just something that passes through the vast open window of awareness.

If you find yourself caught in some concern or preoccupation, see if you can open your window really wide. Create a wide, open, vast space of awareness that just allows whatever is happening to continue to just pass by. Let it flow by without touching anything, without disturbing anything, without it hitting anything within you. It is just phenomena that appear and come and go. It doesn't touch anything that makes it personal. There is no definition, no involvement. Your job is to keep the window open. Cultivate a vast open awareness through which phenomena travel.

Keeping your awareness open creates a vast space that things can just travel through. Open that window wider to include the people in your life, and see if you can just keep the window open. So there's love and care and friendliness, but without the stories, the ideas, and the responsibilities of those people landing anywhere. Just let it pass through the vast field of awareness and love.

Open more widely to include the people of your communities, of your lands, of your continent, and the world. What is the quality of your goodwill, love, care, and compassion if you settle back and allow the love and care to be like a vast open window? With no going forward, no going back, no closing down. Just a field of care. There is nothing to do, nothing to be. There is nothing in the field you need to use to define yourself, prove yourself, or defend yourself. Just vast, peaceful, equanimous goodwill.

Perhaps this is a way of being that you would wish on others. May others also feel safe enough, open enough, and wise enough to rest in their capacity for vast love, goodwill, compassion, and care. May they be happy enough and safe enough to rest in this vast field of love without needing to prove themselves, defend themselves, or assert themselves. May the people I know experience this wonderful, happy way of being.

In wishing it for others, remember to wish it for yourself. Give yourself the gift of a vast, open window of care, love, and goodwill. A state that doesn't automatically need to do anything, prove anything, defend anything, or be anything. Just an open window. May it be that we learn how to abide this way, so we can share it with others. So we can meet each other together in this space. So that when we wish people happiness, safety, health, and freedom, we have a deep reference point for how full and complete that can be from our open window of goodwill.

To whatever degree we have it to express, to evoke the wish:

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe and healthy.
May all beings be free of suffering.
May all beings live together, sharing this wonderful capacity we have for open, liberated love.

So open is the window, the frames of the window disappear.