*Photo by Midnight-digital
Then whatever betides of light and shadow, I can look out on life with quiet eyes. — Howard Thurman
Sometime last winter, I signed up to attend a two-day non-residential retreat with Kamala Masters. As the time approached, I didn’t feel like going. I was busy. I was tired. I didn’t know what she was going to talk about (though I did know that she is a mother of grown children). I had a lot of doubt and fair amount of resistance.
I went.
She talked about equanimity.
Sylvia Boorstein writes that “equanimity is the capacity of the mind to hold a clear view of whatever is happening, both externally and internally, as well as the ability of the mind to accommodate passion without losing its balance. It’s the mind that sees clearly, that meets experience with cordial intent.”
Imagine the balance of a mountain AND the spaciousness of the sky. Equanimity is seeing with quiet eyes, and responding from your own internal place of balance.
Mindfulness allows us to become familiar with our internal terrain, becoming familiar with our mind-states of aversion and attachment. Equanimity is said to be resting our mind before it falls to either extreme. — Kamala Masters
It turns out that equanimity is that thing that helps you survive in life without being tossed around by the spasms of your own broken and desperate heart.
It turns out that equanimity is also that thing that helps you open your heart when it has clamped shut in a perverse attempt to protect itself.
It turns out that equanimity is just the thing I’ve been needing.
Practice Equanimity
You might already know about lovingkindess meditation, but did you know that there is a similar practice for equanimity? To think that one can practice equanimity!
Just as in lovingkindness meditation, you bring to mind different people in your life, starting with a person you feel neutral about. Then you move on to someone you consider a benefactor, then a dear friend or a family member, then someone you have conflicted feelings about or are having difficulty with, and lastly, yourself (try to pick something specific in your life).
For each person, imagine them or think about something you know is happening in their life… take the time to really focus, and then say to yourself: This is how it is for you in your life right now.
Then take the time to notice what is happening in your own heart. Perhaps you feel sad or indifferent, hopeful, disappointed, joyful. Just notice what it is… and say to yourself: This is how it is for me in my heart right now.
Don’t only notice but try to take the time to open to whatever is happening in your heart. You might say to yourself: May I open with balance and ease to what is arising in my heart right now.
Do this for each person, and at the end of your practice, gather the people together and give them lovingkindess… you can say: Just as I wish to be safe from all harm, may you be safe from harm. Just as I wish to be strong and healthy, may you be strong and healthy. Just as I wish to live with ease, may you live with ease.
Listen to a Guided Meditation
Please don’t take my abbreviated description as your only guide… listen to Kamala Masters give an introduction and guided meditation here.
Kamala has a wonderful voice and presence, and your heart will breathe a sigh of relief just listening.
I am grateful to have received this teaching from her.
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lovely. thank you for this. i needed it too.
Ah, equanimity. Sometimes it comes so easily, sometimes it is so elusive…and of course the harder I reach for it, the harder it is to find.
When I can break out of the ooglies and just be present with my kids, that seems to help restore my equanimity, I think because they are reflexively so full of love and joy and NOW.
You’re welcome, ladybug-zen!
And Barbara, you said this so well!
Yesterday was a testament of that to me… I have recently broken through a major “don’t-wanna” vibe (my own) and was just HERE and our day was wonderful.
Funny how that works.
Stacy, I cannot express how grateful I am that I’ve come here today to read this. I’ve skimmed the sites, but will come back for more details. Suffice to say that I have forgotten my way of life in the face of an adversary (my partner’s ex). No more! said the lightbulb above my head, and I’m trying to figure out a way to reverse the “adverse” effects. Sounds like this may be it…
Thank you!
Peace soon come,
Lil
I got a book from the library yesterday and just this morning opened it up… to an article by Sylvia Boorstein about equanimity and kindness!
I added a quote from her to this post, but I highly recommend the entire article!
You can find it here.
This is the third time in two days I have come across a Sylvia Boorstein quote…I think I should pick up Happiness is an Inside Job again. I like this equanimity practice a lot, thanks for sharing. It seems equanimity and loviningkindness arise together, but you can ‘enter’ through either one…I like entering through equanimity, I think it works best for me because as a passionate person I can easily be caught in the storm of my own emotions.
Hee. I’m gonna need all the equanimity I can get in about 3 weeks. Yup. MIL is coming. I’m listening to a tibetan buddhist teacher I’ve started to like quite a bit.
Sylvia’s great, but I have a hard time listening to her (I tend to go far, far away), from some reason. I love her books, though.
One of my favorite words, for all it evokes. Thanks for this post – I am going to return when I am not so fried and un-equanimous myself to take it in more fully.
xo