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Guided Meditation: Things As They Are; Brahma Viharas (5 of 5) Equanimity Practice

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 26, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Things As They Are (link)

As we gather ourselves together today for this sit, whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, be aware of your intention to be here and take a posture that allows you to be here relaxed and alert. To be aware of being here with all of you, bring all of what you bring to this moment.

Be in your body. Recognize all the pieces of your body: your feet, your legs, your hips, your soft belly. Let it relax. Let your torso relax. Your shoulders. Lower your shoulders and your elbows. Feel your fingers at the end of your arms. Relax your neck, your jaw, your chin. Take a deep breath and let it out.

Allow all your feelings to be here and let them go, coming and going with each breath. Thoughts coming and going with each breath.

Relax the breath. Let it breathe just the way it wants to breathe. Let the air move in and out as the body feels most safe, most comfortable. No need for it to do anything other than breathe.

Even your awareness, the awareness is simply here.

See everything just as it is. The breath is shallow. The breath is deep. The breath is short. The breath is long, just as it is. Just here.

Thoughts arise because that's the nature of thoughts. Allow them to come and go. No need to hold on. No need to push away.

Sounds come and go. That's the nature of sounds. Here, gone. Just like the breath, our awareness is here with things just as they are.

What do you notice now? Does it feel easy to notice what you notice? Your breath, your body in this space, the attitude of your mind. Is there tightness or looseness? Everything is okay. What do you see? What do you feel? Just as it is. The breath, the body, the heart, just as it is.

The surface of your face, the temperature of your skin. All things. Awareness is within and without. Just here now. Just as it is.

Don't float away. Stay here.

May this practice enable us to see clearly. This is how it is. These are the feelings that I feel. This is how my body is. I am here. These thoughts, this way of being, this is what's happening. So that I am better able to be present for my life, to be present for things as they are, to know things as they are, despite what I may wish.

Dharmette: Brahma Viharas (5 of 5) Equanimity Practice (link)

Hello everyone. My name is Marisa T. St. Amand¹ and this is our last day of discussing the Brahma Viharas² this week. But the Brahma Viharas are always with us in some form or another. And as we're winding this up, it occurs to me that there wasn't a single topic that deserved only 15 minutes. Only 15 minutes of dharma discussion about these things that are so important, these aspects of being human, these movements of the heart.

But this last one, equanimity, we're going to spend a little more time on today. In particular, equanimity is one of those Buddhist words that comes at the end of all the lists. You find it at the end of many of them, and it appears to be something that we have to be. It becomes one more thing that we have to be; we have to be equanimous. Or it can be something that seems unattainable, like it's at the end, so it's the culmination of our practice, or it seems like maybe the reward of practice.

And in some respects, that last item is a reward of practice, but it is not something that's the end of practice. It's something that we have and something that can be cultivated and made more. It's something that we can be more aware of. It's something that can be a larger part of our lives. And that's what I want to talk about today because I think equanimity... well, I particularly like what Joan Halifax said about it. Several times this week, I've said Joan Halifax referred to compassion as a soft front and a strong back. She also said, "Equanimity is the capacity to be in touch with suffering at the same time not be swept away by it. It is the strong back that supports the soft front." Equanimity is the strong back that supports the soft front.

So we can talk about some of the things that support the quality and development of equanimity, and they're going to sound really familiar to you. So, virtue, integrity. It's easier to be equanimous if you're not hiding something. You know, "I don't want to hide this part of me. I don't want to hide that part of me. I don't want you to know about that thing," and I'm worried about it because it directly places us in the place of blame.

So equanimity is a quality that is blameless. We don't blame others. We don't blame ourselves. It's "this is how it is." So the quality of blamelessness is one to consider and think about. I once gave a whole talk on blamelessness, so we're not going to spend a lot of time on that, but think about how that affects your quality of being able to be present for what's happening. The quality of not blaming yourself or others for the conditions as they are at this moment. Not blame. These are the conditions.

Okay. The second one is the quality of faith and confidence. And as we practice, our ability to realize the practice is serving us grows stronger, and we're more confident about how we show up in the world. The more mindful we are, the more we're able to be mindful. It kind of builds on itself. And so the sense that all of our practice increases the sense of equanimity is an important one.

A well-developed mind. And by that, what I mean is the ability to be in balance. If we follow every thought, allow our thoughts to be random all the time, follow every train of thought that comes up and never say, "No, I'm going to be here now. I'm going to be present now. I'm going to figure out what's happening right now," that discipline of mindfulness is an important part of being equanimous in the end. So that helps us come to grips with, "Oh, this is what's happening. I can see this is what's happening."

There's also a sense of well-being. "Okay, right in this moment, I'm feeling okay. I can have a drink of water. Yeah, that feels okay." A sense of, "I'm okay in this moment."

Understanding or wisdom that comes out of practice supports equanimity. So things like understanding that people are responsible for their own actions. You may want something for someone, and they continue to do something you think is harmful. In the end, it's not your responsibility. It is theirs. In the same sense, you're responsible for your own actions. It's not what somebody else wants you to do that affects what's true for you. It's what you choose. It's what the other person chooses. The responsibility doesn't lie on somebody's ability to influence someone else.

We have to understand that our own actions are dependent on the conditions that arise. We don't have control over everything. Understanding impermanence and how conditions affect how we show up in the world so that we don't blame everything on us. Conditions cannot be made personal. We simply don't have control over everything. What we have control over is our own reactions. That requires us to know our own minds. It requires us to know when equanimity is absent, to realize, "You know, I am not doing well here." To know when that's true. To know, "I'm feeling out of balance here." To notice that.

To really see the nature of impermanence. Ajahn Chah³ was a Thai forest teacher. He's one of Jack Kornfield's major teachers. And he tells a story about how he was meditating and people were making a horrible amount of noise, and he was furious about the noise. He'd go sit in his hut and he'd think, "Why are these people making all this noise? If they would just go, I'm sure I could become enlightened."

And he listened to himself complaining and he quickly realized, "Well, they're just having a good time down there. I'm making myself miserable up here. No matter how upset I get, my anger is just making more noise internally." And then he had this insight: "Ah, the sound is just the sound. It's me who's going out to annoy it. If I leave the sound alone, it won't annoy me. It's just doing what it has to do. That's what sound does. It makes sound. That's its job. So if I don't go out and bother the sound, it's not going to bother me."

Now that may sound hard, speaking of sounding, but the truth is it is the reaction to the sound that is the suffering and not the sound. It is the reaction and not the sound. Most wisdom actually arises from seeing one's own reactions to turmoil, irritations, generally things not being the way we want them to be.

Most of the lessons in my life have had that quality. When I come to understand, "You know, if it was just like this, it would be perfect," and realizing that that is where the suffering arises. Am I wanting it to be perfect? Am I wanting it to be this way to be perfect? Most of my suffering around holidays has been that, where I'll think I try to make everything perfect. I make food for everybody. I was making four different entrées to satisfy everybody's particular food needs. And I was miserable the whole time. I was miserable until I finally figured out that what I really wanted was just for everyone to be happy. I didn't really want to serve the best meal to every person. That was just my way of making people happy.

And when I retreated to, "I just want people to be happy," I stopped trying to make them happy by what I did. And I started just looking at, "All I want is for people to be together." I cannot make them happy. I was much happier.

So I once went on retreat at a time when I felt very alienated from my family and very condemned by them. It was a month-long retreat, and at the beginning, I spoke with Joseph Goldstein⁴, who said, "Ah, I have exactly what you need to do. You need to do equanimity practice." Like, "Okay, okay, I'll do equanimity practice."

So for every walking period for a month, I repeated the phrases. Now that's sitting and walking continually all day for a month, every walking period. Here's what I said:

"I am heir to my own karma⁵. My happiness or unhappiness depends on my own intentions and actions, not what others may wish. Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. May I see things just as they are. May I meet the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance."

"I am heir to my own karma. My happiness or suffering depends on my own intentions and actions, not what others may wish. Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. May I see things just as they are. May I meet the arising and passing away of all things with equanimity and balance."

Any one of those phrases at a different time led to great realizations for me. But the one I want to highlight for you has to do with that first line: My suffering depends on my intentions and my actions. End of story. Everything else supports that. "Despite what I may wish, things are as they are. May I see things just as they are." This is the development of equanimity. I highly recommend this practice. I still do this practice often, mostly when I do walking meditation, but often.

I'm going to close with a poem by Hogen Baye,⁶ who is or was, I'm not sure of his status, abbot of the Great Vow Zen Monastery in Oregon. And he wrote this and dedicated it to Shōhaku Okumura Roshi.⁷ It's called "In This Passing Moment." I like this because this is exactly the spirit.

In this passing moment, in the presence of Sangha,⁸ in the light of Dharma, in oneness with the Buddha, may my path to complete enlightenment benefit everyone.

In this passing moment, karma ripens and all things come to be.

I vow to choose what is.

If there is cost, I choose to pay. If there is need, I choose to give. If there is pain, I choose to feel. If there is sorrow, I choose to grieve.

When burning, I choose heat. When calm, I choose peace. When starving, I choose hunger. When happy, I choose joy.

Whom I encounter, I choose to meet. What I shoulder, I choose to bear. When it is my death, I choose to die. Where this takes me, I choose to go.

Being with what is, I respond to what is. This life is as real as a dream. The one who knows it cannot be found. And truth is not a thing.

Therefore, I vow to choose this dharma entrance gate. May all Buddhas and wise ones help me live this vow.

May you all see things as they are. May you choose things just as they are. And may you be happy. Thank you for spending this week with me.