--- ai_generation_date: '2026-10-11' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview ai_prompt_hash: 964013ba audiodharma: talks: - date: '2020-08-14' is_meditation: true mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/11877/20200814-Gil_Fronsdal-IMC-guided_meditation_equanimity.mp3 section_slug: guided-meditation-equanimity speakers: - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: 'Guided Meditation: Equanimity' url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11877 video_unavailable: false collapsed_sections: [] location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: IhFwzfEY87M imprecise_upload_date: '2021-05-04' title: 'Guided Meditation: Sitting with Equanimity' upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhFwzfEY87M --- # Guided Meditation: Equanimity - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1) _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._ ## Introduction Good morning. It seems that we're here together through the marvel of the technological use of electrons. Those electrons are pervasively foundational for our lives even before technology, but now with technology, it's amazing how they can be harnessed. Here we are; I'm talking with you and I see all these names. It's wonderful to see the names on chat and wonderful to be here. For those of you who weren't here yesterday, we'll have a community meeting when we finish here on Zoom. The Zoom address is at the top of this chat, and the password is _metta_ (m-e-t-t-a)[^1], which is also up there. The link is found on IMC's calendar under Community Discussion, and also on the "What's New" page of IMC's homepage. So, hopefully, you'll find it. ## [Guided Meditation: Equanimity](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11877) So, I'll offer you an image that I offered some months ago for meditation. The image is that you have had a wonderful hike, maybe in a beautiful natural setting, a beautiful wilderness where it feels quite safe for you and comfortable. And you come to a beautiful river. Parts of the river are quite calm, and in parts of it, the water is flowing strongly. You're able to wade out into the river to a big boulder that's there. The boulder is fairly big, and there the water is a little bit fast, but you get up on the boulder where it's quite wide and safe, and you sit down to meditate on this boulder, facing upstream. You're sitting there, marveling at just all the water pouring downriver, passing by the boulder on both sides, coming up against the boulder and being washed to the left and to the right. It just washes by and washes by. You're able to just sit there, safe and contented, having this wonderful overview of watching. You are a little bit high above the water because the rock sits up a little bit high, and you are just aware of all the water flowing and flowing by. That's how we sit and meditate. We sit down to meditate upright, metaphorically or literally, and allow whatever is happening, whatever is arising and passing, to just flow right by. What that flowing by means is that the part of your mind that can observe, be aware, and know what's happening—the capacity for awareness—just lets everything else that is known, everything that comes into awareness, wash by. Everything that's known is known briefly. Everything that's known is known just for the moments in which we know it. In some way, it might stay in the background or the foreground, but there's something about coming into awareness: it comes, it's there for a while, then it's not there. Something else comes into awareness. The original thing might return, or the original thing might never return. You might have a thought that is just a thought about a car passing by, and that thought never comes back. The idea is just to sit there and allow everything to pass. Your meditation seat is your boulder. Your awareness is sitting on the boulder, just letting everything pass by like a river. So, take your meditation place and bring a little bit of attention to being stable in your body on this place. Feel the weight of your body against the chair, your cushion, the floor—wherever the weight of your body is received. Maybe you can feel the stability, the solidity of that contact. Then, feel a certain kind of relaxed, even pleasant stability in your body that's based on that contact with your chair, cushion, or floor. Close your eyes and feel that stability from the inside out. As you exhale, relax around whatever stability there is. Relax the muscles of the body. The shoulders soften. And on the exhale around that stability, relax into it. Do the same with the mind. Feel whatever degree of stability there is in the mind, whatever degree of stability there is in being aware or being mindful. As you exhale, maybe even in the mind you can relax and soften around some kind of mental stability. Perhaps beginning with the flow of breathing, allow the comings and goings of the inhale and exhale to be like the river that washes by the boulder. The boulder stays stable and unmoved, unconcerned with the river. So, awareness feels and experiences the flow of breathing in and breathing out without getting agitated, disturbed, or bothered by anything. Be content to experience breathing in whatever way is easy, in whatever way it comes. Regardless of the distractibility of the mind or the thinking of the mind, just be content to experience breathing in whatever way it flows by, comes, and goes. Perhaps feeling a little bit better the physical intimacy of the body's experience of breathing, and resting and staying with the flow of breathing. Just allow everything else that appears to appear, and allow it to disappear, without getting involved in it, thinking about it, or being bothered by anything, and without interacting or picking any thought up. Thoughts flow by, emotions are flowing, and sounds are coming and going. Be attuned to the sensations of the body, to that part of the experience which is rising and passing, changing into the stability of awareness. It is almost as if awareness is sitting on a boulder above the water, just watching everything pass by. The river just washes right by. Though sometimes there are fish in the river that swim around right next to the boulder. If that's the case, and they're not flowing or passing by but hanging out there, just watch the fish. You don't have to be involved, go fishing, or be bothered by them. Watch them for a little while, and then maybe return to the changing flow of breathing, to the river of experience coming and going. But remember that you're sitting on a boulder: stable, quiet, safe. It is a place where you don't have to get involved with anything; just let it flow by. Whatever has a nature to appear has the nature to disappear as well[^2]. ## Reflections And then, as we come to the end of the sitting, it is one thing to sit on a boulder in a river and watch all things flow by. It's another thing to be the boulder for people who are agitated—to be a calm, stable presence as everyone is perturbed, upset, afraid, and spinning out. There is tremendous value in being calm, stable, and equanimous[^3] in the middle of difficulties and challenges. For one person to be the boulder, to be the stability, can help everyone else to calm down. To be one more person who is agitated adds to the contagion of agitation, and just adds more agitated energy for everyone else to be caught up in. May it be that we learn from meditation the value of a calm, stable presence. We learn from meditation the value of being in the world without agitation. Perhaps imperturbable, equanimous—not because we're indifferent, but because we care a lot about other people. We care a lot about the world. To be in this world as a stable, unagitated presence is a great gift that enables the gifts of others to come forth. It supports the best in others to be present. That's lost when people are agitated. May it be our gift to the world that we offer whatever degree of stability, imperturbability, and equanimity that we have available to us in a natural, authentic way. May we share that with others, not so they become agitated by our own agitation, but so that they are more deeply accepted, more deeply allowed to relax themselves, not be afraid, to catch their breath, and return to themselves. May it be that this meditation that we do together today supports the stability and non-agitation of the people we encounter today. If each of us, in some way or other, encounters people through meetings, phone calls, emails, or some kind of contact, then maybe a thousand people will be a little bit less agitated today. And if they pass that on to two more people, that is two more thousand people. May it be that the non-agitation we bring into the world spreads out in circles, outwards and outwards, to bring greater non-agitation to this world. May it be that all beings learn to be unagitated, at home in themselves, steady, stable, connected, and intimate with the deepest parts of their hearts—the place deep inside that is the wellspring of happiness, freedom, health, and peace. May our non-agitation help others connect to the depth of their own hearts. --- [^1]: **Metta:** A Pali word often translated as "loving-kindness," "goodwill," or "friendliness." [^2]: **Whatever has a nature to appear...:** This phrase is a common English translation of a fundamental Buddhist insight into impermanence (_Anicca_), reflecting the understanding that all conditioned things are subject to arising and passing away. [^3]: **Equanimity (Upekkhā):** A balanced and grounded state of mind that remains stable and peaceful amidst the changing conditions of life, free from clinging or aversion.