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Guided Meditation: Vast Love

Hello everyone, welcome. Today I would like to call upon these almost 70 guided meditations and talks on love that we've been doing here since the beginning of January. Some of you have been along for many of them, most of them, or all of them. They're meant to have a continuity between them, a building. Now we come to the form of love known as equanimity, a form of equanimity that is love. It's called a brahmavihāra^[1], the divine abode of equanimity.

To make the most sense of this and to really appreciate it deeply, it helps to call upon all that we've done so far and the tapping into samādhi^[2]. Some of you have been along here for a couple of years, and last year's long series was on samādhi. The development of love gives a unique perspective on this topic of equanimity, equanimity as a form of love. So I'm going to call upon your experience in meditation with samādhi, with being calm, peaceful, maybe a sense of an expansive mind. Maybe it's your imagination that calls on this.

So following along, assuming a meditation posture and quietly adjusting your posture. The posture contains within it a feeling of alertness. It doesn't have to be dramatic, but there is some feeling of alertness in the torso, in the spine, in the positioning of the neck, and how the head sits on the neck. Your hands and arms too are positioned in such a way that they provide some stability and also open you up. If your hands are face down on your thighs, stability is there in the resting of the hands on the thighs. If your hands are pulled up a bit on your thighs, with your elbows into your side, it might help open the chest a bit. Expansiveness there.

Gently closing your eyes, feeling your body from the inside out as if you can have a global panoramic view. Sometimes I've taken the image of standing someplace really dark in the mountains or desert, looking up into the vast sky all around, to be the reference point for being in the middle of my body and gazing around panoramically throughout the body, without getting caught in any particular place. As if the body itself is a vast universe. If you were an atom in the middle of your body, this body would in fact feel like a galaxy of vastness.

Then within this body, slowly, mindfully, as a way of connecting deeply, taking some deeper, fuller breaths, as if you're filling out the whole global body with awareness. And as you exhale to relax the body, a settling in to the center from all directions. Often in relaxing, the focus is on the shoulders, the belly, or the chest. It's also possible to have the settling be in the back rib cage, in the spine. The area here of your hip joint, where the sides of your thigh meet the sides of your torso.

Then letting your breathing return to normal, allow the same global awareness to take in the mind. Not the particular thoughts or feelings you have, but the wide field of awareness of the mind, in which there are many things happening, but without focusing on anything in particular. Like here too, there's a vast universe with a global awareness that spreads out because the mind has no edges. There's no boundary between what is mind and not mind. Maybe the awareness either saturates the whole of it, or it's a small atom gazing out into the vast space universe of the mind. Feeling what's there, knowing what's there, as if it's all okay. It's just stars, stardust, moons, and galaxies.

On the inhale, letting awareness expand out into the universe of the mind. And on the exhale, relaxing and settling the mind. Not just having the mind settle in the head, but there's a way that this vast mind can settle into the torso, settle into the movements of breathing. So that the vast body and the vast mind are not so different. And in the middle of it all, there's a rhythm of breathing, the pulsing. Breathing in. Breathing out. Whatever sensations of breathing there are, are occurring within this vast field of space, or vast ocean of experience.

With every inhale, awareness spreads wide. Not stopping with any thought, any emotion, but not denying it or rejecting it. Just spreading through it and beyond it. Holding it in space. And on the exhale, letting the thinking mind become quieter, slower. So you can appreciate that that provides more space of awareness. Where there were thoughts, now there's more attention.

Nothing is rejected, and in a certain way, nothing is accepted. Neither accepted nor rejected. Everything is allowed to be in the vast spacious mind. As you breathe through everything, breathe beyond everything. Exhale back to a settling place deep within, where there is a vast awareness, a vastness of space that can hold anything at all: any thought, any feeling, any sensation.

Just keep remembering that with the exhale and inhale, do not stop with anything. Not stop for any thoughts, any sensations, any emotions. Let the oscillation, the rhythm of breathing expand beyond whatever is there. With the inhale, holding everything peacefully, even what is not peaceful within. And on the exhale, settling to a peaceful settle. At the end of the exhale.

And in the quiet of mind, in the spaciousness of awareness, in the vast space of body and mind, maybe you can recognize equanimity and nonreactivity that allows everything just to be what it is, without it being a problem, without it being a gift. Without doing anything except letting each thing be itself in the wider space of the mind, the wider space of the body. Allowing the thinking mind to become quieter. Letting go of thoughts in order to better be with the equanimity towards all things, allowing all things to be themselves. Without a problem, without argument, without contention or holding on, without savoring anything. Just letting it be.

And in the vast stillness, spaciousness, just sitting here this way. Might there be some peace or some calm that has no reason to be there? It just is. Nothing needs to justify it. And to breathe whatever degree of peace or calm that is that way. It just is.

And might there be, maybe connected to that peace or calm, something in the family of love? A love that has no object. A love which has no reason, that's not directed to anybody or anything at all. A love that just is. That's big enough, wide enough to hold all things. Maybe it's a soft tenderness. A gentle kindness, a radiance, or a glow of love.

A love which can hold all things is a love that's not dependent on anything being one way or the other. A love that's not for or against anything. A love that doesn't react. A love which is equanimous. And for the last short time here, gently, gradually, see if you can expand your love, your peace, your vast awareness to become big enough to hold all that is difficult in this world. Starting with local, gently opening up wider and wider. Keeping this equanimous love that holds all things.

There's nothing to fix, nothing to solve, nothing to identify with, no past, no future. Just now. The equanimous love that holds all things, peacefully. A heart that's big enough to hold the whole world.

And then, as if you're in a space capsule—comfortable, wonderful, safe space—far out in space looking back at the Earth, offer your goodwill to this whole planet, everyone on it. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.

And may you periodically touch into love that is equanimous, vast, spacious, that can hold all beings in it. May all beings be happy.

[bell]

Thank you.

Dharmette: Love (65) Equanimous Love

Hello everyone, and welcome to the beginning of the next subseries for this long series on love. Today we start with the love of equanimity, equanimous love that is considered to be the divine abode of equanimity. In Buddhism, there's a big emphasis on this word, upekkhā^[3], meaning equanimity. It seems that the etymology of the Pali word upa means to gaze upon. So, to have a bird's-eye view, so we're not caught in the middle of everything, the drama. We see everything spaciously and can kind of step back and not be entangled in things. There are many different ways that this kind of equanimity can exist for us, but one of the ways is as a form of love.

It's usually considered the fourth of the four divine abodes. Not because it's last and least important, but because maybe it's the culmination, the full maturity of the other forms of love: goodwill^[4], compassion^[5], and appreciative joy^[6]. Those are the foundation to be able to now expand outwards into an equanimous love, a love which is non-reactive, doesn't get agitated, and doesn't get reactive.

And it's not for or against. In the earlier forms of love, there is a little desire or movement for and against. Loving-kindness, or goodwill, is wanting well, having a desire for the well-being of others. Compassion is a desire for people's suffering to end; we don't want the suffering, so we would like it to end for people. Appreciative joy is also a movement towards, saying yes and celebrating with people. But equanimous love does none of that. It just stays very peaceful, but it stays very present.

That's the richness of this equanimity, equanimous love. There are times when it's not appropriate to actively have goodwill towards people or to be kind to them, as it's not going to be received or wanted. People want to be left alone in their challenging circumstances. The same thing with compassion; people don't want our help, our support, or our compassion. And there are times when there's nothing to celebrate, no particular joy. We don't have a role when people are not letting us in; it's not a situation where we can do something. But we can still love. We don't have to run away, close down, or abandon the situation. We can stay present.

This is a very powerful, significant lesson in the world of spiritual care that hopefully goes into human life everywhere. In spiritual care, the most important offering we have to give people is to be present with them. To be present with our ears to really listen, present with our eyes to really show that we're here and attending to them—respecting them, being with them with our body. Without being dominating over them or having an assertive posture, but also not a posture that's pulling away. The body shows we're here.

Sometimes that is where we can offer equanimous love. To get a sense of its power and value for ourselves and maybe for others was the purpose of the guided meditation we just did. I wanted to try to give you a taste of what equanimity could be like, building on the meditation practice you've been doing for the last six months. With the topic of love, can we build on that love? Can we build on this samādhi to make it grow and become larger? Like our capacity to hold things, our capacity to be present becomes fuller and wider.

In the beginning, if we're stressed out, strained, or caught up in thoughts, fears, and doubts, it might be a very small thing that we're concerned with. We might feel uncertain that we know how to put on our shoes. We've done it for decades, but it feels so difficult. Maybe we have new shoes and they are difficult. But there's an equanimity: "I can figure it out. It's a shoe, it's not a problem. I'm not afraid of the shoe." We have space and capacity to work with the shoe. Sorry to use such a silly example, but we can expand our capacity.

It grows and grows, and so the capacity for goodwill, the capacity for compassion, the capacity for appreciative joy can all grow. The more it grows, the more room there is to hold everything without reactivity, without buying into it, pushing it away, or being for or against it. It grows into this vast equanimous love. This is the most useful, powerful form of love at times when nothing else is asked of us except to hold the world, hold others in our love, and stay present. To hold it in a love that's not reactive, anxious, or agitated, that's not for and against, but where we're offering the gift of kind, warmhearted, respectful, caring presence.

It's an invaluable form of love, this equanimous love. I'm taking this approach to introduce it because for some people, the word equanimity seems close to the word indifference, or close to the idea of not caring or being at a cold distance from the experience. So there's a resistance even to hearing the word, and it feels incomprehensible that there is a love this way. But there is. This way of introducing it today was meant to open the field, to give you a taste of how wonderful it is to have the capacity to hold all things with equanimity. To hold all things with a caring love that is not for or against, that's not always evaluating, thinking, or planning. We don't always have to feel like we're responsible to fix something or help; sometimes we can't. Just to learn how to be with it with love is a phenomenal gift we give to people.

It's a love which can grow and develop, and we'll explore it here for the next two weeks. It's akin to a love which has no reason. Many times people love in exchange; it's almost a contract: "If I pay attention to you, if I want you, then you should want me." For some people, their idea of love is the pleasure and inspiration of someone else who adores them. So it is not so much that we love another person, as we love them because they adore us, and it's an exchange where we get something in return.

With the brahmavihāras, that's not the idea with any of them, but with equanimity, even more so. There's no exchange. Nothing is required in return. The other person could be angry or say things that are mean. In certain circumstances, it can be quite appropriate to expand and hold that person and that event in equanimous love. It is not the time for goodwill, compassion, or appreciative joy. But we don't have to give up our capacity for love just because someone's being mean.

That's allowing the mean person to have a deep effect on us, for us to contract around it. At some point in Buddhist practice, it becomes really clear that it's not at all interesting to sacrifice our own well-being because of how someone else behaves. Now, this is a difficult stage to come to, and maybe a lot of practice has to go into it beforehand, but to begin appreciating that there's love and we don't have to give it up. We don't have to sacrifice it, close it down, or close our heart to anyone. The reason for it is not because there's a requirement to keep it open. Rather, we see clearly within ourselves that when we close our heart, we are harming ourselves. We are contracting and limiting ourselves. Why would you want to do that? Why do you want to allow the other person to have that kind of effect on you? Maybe that's what they're hoping you'll do because they want you to suffer.

So, this equanimous love. I offer this as something for you to reflect on today. I gave a Sunday morning talk yesterday to warm myself up to give this talk this week on equanimity, and some of you might want to listen to it. But the important thing here is that as you go through the day today, the next 24 hours, see if you can remember some of the things I've taught here. See if you can somehow feel your way or imagine your way to how to be with people—maybe strangers, maybe safe people, maybe people in public you don't have any relationship with. See if there's some kind of equanimous love that you can experiment with and touch into.

A love that doesn't want anything, doesn't need anything, doesn't try to get away from anything. A love that is just a warmth, a warmheartedness that's open to all things without being for or against them. Experiment with that. See where you are with that. And then we'll continue tomorrow.