This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Intending Love; Brahma Viharas (4 of 5) Uppeka - Equanimity. It likely contains inaccuracies.

Guided Meditation: Intending Love; Brahma Viharas (4 of 5) Uppeka - Equanimity

The following talk was given by Maria Straatmann at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on September 25, 2025. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Intending Love (link)

Welcome to this day sit, this day's meditation.

I invite you today to gather together your intention. Why is it you are here? What is it that you long for? And bring that intention into the core of your system here. And let that sit in your center and say, "Here is my intention today."

And since we've been talking this week about the Brahma Viharas—loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy—let that be an intention linked to love, to an opening of the heart. Let your intention to have an open heart, to be filled with loving kindness, sit here as you settle in.

Take a deep breath and let it out.

Feel your feet, your legs, your hips. Soften your belly. Let your torso sink, sink into ease in your heart. Let that intention fill your heart.

May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.

Breathe in that intention. Breathe out any tension. In with intention, out with tension. And just breathe.

Gently, gently allow your tender heart to be here.

Whatever arises, arises, and still we are here. The breath coming and going, in and out, into our tender hearts.

May I be filled with loving kindness. May suffering come to an end. May all beings know delight. May I be happy. May my heart, my heart be filled with love and radiate outward with each breath.

Before we open our eyes, I want to read a poem by Stephen Levine called "Meditation Blues."

Sometimes it breaks my heart to watch my mind. Cold self-interest, insistent fear and judgment, whispered insults, vengeful fantasies, triumph, and despair. A conditioned unfolding so impersonal we take it personally. Sometimes I gasp at the casual cruelty of even minor fears and celebrations. Sometimes it breaks my heart to watch my mind. And sometimes it stays broken long enough to touch even this pain with love. Sometimes the mercy washes even Lady Macbeth's hands, turns tragedy to grace, and makes it all worthwhile. Sometimes it breaks my mind to watch my heart.

Introduction

Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Maria. I hope you survived whatever electronic glitch we had. Electronic glitches seem to be chasing me today. I won't go into the catalog of them all. Must be, I don't know, Mercury in retrograde or something. Some days are like that, right? Things arise, they pass away. They arise, they pass away. The internet arises, it passes away.

Dharmette: Brahma Viharas (4 of 5) Uppeka - Equanimity (link)

We're going to talk today about equanimity, which seems appropriate to the time. Equanimity being that quality that allows us to be present without despair or over-elation for whatever arises in life. That quality that keeps us steady and centered.

I'm going to skip the poem I was going to read because I felt like Stephen Levine this morning was right. But I'm going to tell you about when I first started practicing. I had as my intention the intention to be openhearted because I felt so protected from the world, so battered, so much the need to protect myself that there were barriers here, and they seemed like complete and strong barriers. And so my intention was to be openhearted.

After some time, I got to the point where I said, "You know, it's really not something I have to construct or deconstruct. I just need to be open." Oh. And then after more years, it finally came to me that I could shorten the whole thing to "be." That what I needed to do was just show up for my life, be present for my life, be totally and completely honest in showing up for my life and seeing me as I am in this moment. Being aware of my mind habits, seeing things just as they are—so simple and so difficult. That the way to be openhearted is to be truly present.

Equanimity describes the condition that can arise when one is totally aware of and appreciating the presence of suffering, impermanence, and not-self. The impersonal nature of everything that happens, not making it about us, but seeing it, seeing things arise and passing away. Oh, now this is happening. Oh, now this is happening.

We've all known the person who seems to be able to walk into the room in the middle of a crisis and just be there without losing their minds, right? And losing themselves to elation or despair. And they just seem to be always centered. How do you think they do that? They look around and they somehow just seem to be there. They're not being blown around by what we call the eight worldly winds.¹ Those praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute—all of the things that cause us to react. "Well, it's your fault. It's my fault. Oh no, how could I lose that thing? How could I have wanted that one last leaf left on the branch?" Whatever it is that we want that is not there or we don't want that is there. Always wanting things to be different than they are, wanting ourselves to be different than we are.

Those eight winds are often the source of our being blown off course. They are the source of our suffering, wanting things to be other than they are. That's why it's so important to be able to see clearly. See clearly.

I remember the day when it finally occurred to me there was nothing wrong with my heart. Nothing wrong with my heart. It was only the way I was trying to manipulate everything around it to be safe, to be directed, to be right, to have the right things happening, to be a better person. Meanwhile, the poor heart was just there wanting to connect, wanting to be with others, wanting to be clear and open. And here I was trying to manipulate everything around me to fit, to make everything better, to be a better person.

There's nothing wrong with your heart.

It is the quality of equanimity that allows us to be present, to realize the loving kindness in our hearts, to wish well for ourselves and for others, to see the suffering of the world, to allow our hearts to take that in and not be destroyed by that, to experience joy, to wish joy for others.

The Buddha in the Dhammapada² says, "As a solid mass of rock is not stirred by the wind, so a sage is not moved by praise and blame. As a deep lake is clear and undisturbed, so a sage becomes clearer upon hearing the dharma. Virtuous people always let go. They don't prattle about pleasures and desires. Touched by happiness and then by suffering, the sage shows no sign of being elated or depressed."

Stuff happens. Life happens. What we want is to be totally there for what's happening, for our own experiences. I can be totally present for the garbage truck outside. At least it's not an electronic disturbance.

Buddha described a mind filled with equanimity as "abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility or ill will." Abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will. Equanimity doesn't say nothing matters. Equanimity says everything matters. It is totally inclusive. Everything matters, but it isn't about me.

The English word equanimity incorporates a variety of Pali words. The one we use when we talk about equanimity in the Brahma Viharas is upekkha.³ Upekkha means "to look over." So it talks about a broad view, and it has to do with the power of observation, the ability to see without being caught by what we see. "I see you. Oh, this is what's happening now." This power, when well-developed, gives a great sense of peace and ease. "Ah, this is what's happening. It's like this. It's like this."

The second way that equanimity is described in Pali uses a combination word, which is tatramajjhattatā.⁴ So tatra refers to "there" or "all things." It's a kind of "all there," all things. The middle part, majjha, means "middle." So, "there" and "middle." And -tā means "to stand" or "poise." So it means "standing in the middle of." Equanimity is standing in the middle of. You can picture yourself in a room just standing in the middle of; nothing else is required. You don't have to do something or be something. You just have to be present and say, "Ah, overview. This is what's happening, and I am still here. I am here in the middle of it."

This person, this person who's showing up this way with all of my gifts and flaws, this person today is standing in the middle of this as I see it. This being in the middle is the balance. It balances the pleasure, the pain, the gain, the loss, the fame, the disrepute. And it says, "Ah, now this is the one that we're seeing now." It allows us to see the happy person and know that we wish we had been happy, and we take our burned hands out of our pockets and we clap for that person. "Oh, this is the one that's experiencing this now. I'm so happy for you." This is equanimity. It's mudita, but it's also equanimity.

The movement of the heart when you see people being hurt, people suffering, when you see your own suffering. "I'm aware of suffering. I feel my heart being broken. I intend to do something about this because this is what's happening now. I see it and I don't turn away from it."

The opening of the heart is the practice of seeing things as they are, not how we would like them to be. Opening to suffering, our own and others, wishing well for all beings. Despite what is happening, this opening to suffering and joy must be accompanied by balance. It is the resilience factor. It is the one that allows us to sway with what's happening and be steady, to be buffeted and not torn.

Ajahn Sucitto⁵ was talking about something else, but I love this quote:

When we cultivate the heart, we're not concentrating on what appears or disappears, but on the change. When a thought ends, there's a moment of pause, a moment of space. When we don't know something or we don't have an opinion, there's a moment of silence, of emptiness. At that moment, we're listening. We're tending to the present experience rather than creating something. Instead, we learn to allow perceptions and feelings to go through us. We watch our fears, doubts, discontent, and sorrow arise. We become much more transparent, allowing feelings to go through us without holding on or pushing them away. This means opening the mind, sensitizing ourselves to the movement and change of things. Then other beings and the world around can move through us and teach us without taking over.

Not just suffering, but the impermanence of all conditioned things. These things are not us. Pain and joy may be present, but they're not us. Even if we are experiencing them. Like the heat is not me, or anger is not me, or rapture is not me. When I clearly see these, I can be present for these experiences as they occur with an open heart, unswayed, offering loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, with no diminishment of myself. I can touch and be touched.

This last word from Jack Kornfield:

True peace comes with the discovery that we can respect the seasons of life with a spacious and undefended heart. In it, we learn to trust, to rest in the truth of the way things are, to willingly accept the measure of joy and sorrow we are given.

Please inhabit your life with your warm and tender heart. Thank you.