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Equanimity - Mei Elliott

The following talk was given by Mei Elliott at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on March 18, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Equanimity

Good morning everyone, welcome. I am so glad to be here with you. I am coming up today from Santa Cruz, where I now live. I moved there in the fall to the Insight Retreat Center. It is interesting moving back because I actually grew up there as a little kid. I lived there until I was about ten, so most of my childhood memories are there. It has been really fun exploring that landscape and having different memories come up.

One memory that came up is about the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. For those that don't know, it is this great old amusement park right on the beach, and it has this really rickety, ancient wooden roller coaster. I used to go to the boardwalk with my little best friend, Binky. We worked our way up to the roller coaster, starting with the smaller rides, and over the years made our way to the big one.

Like many roller coasters, at the pinnacle of the ride, a photograph is taken. Something really stuck with me from one of the times we made it on the roller coaster. In the photo, one of us was gripping the safety bar for dear life, hunkered down with an expression of total terror. The other one had their hands in the air, just pure glee.

It struck me that there was something interesting about that. Here is one ride, but two very different ways to ride it.

We could say that our life is a little like a roller coaster. There are highs and lows, ups and downs. Typically, we cling to each state: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame¹. We get really happy and excited when the pleasant things come, and we get upset when the unpleasant things come. This is how we typically do it, and it can become a really rough ride when we get thrown around by all of those highs and lows.

Here we have this one life. We can cling to the safety bar, totally freaked out for the whole roller coaster, or we can learn to let go, put our hands in the air, and enjoy the ride. Of course, ultimately we want to be here for the whole ride. I used to have a teacher who would say, "Can you be here for the whole ride?" A lot of times it feels like we are just trying to get to the end of it, looking for the safe dismount. But we are not living just to get to the end; we want to learn how to be here for the full spectrum of human experience.

The Balancing Factor of Equanimity

This morning I want to talk about how to be on the roller coaster without feeling like you are always on a roller coaster. In other words, how can we be with the vicissitudes of life—the ups and the downs—without feeling unmoved by them? I will be talking about equanimity, this great balancing factor.

As you probably know, in Buddhism there are lots and lots of lists, and equanimity appears all over the place. It is the capstone of the Seven Factors of Awakening, it is in the Pāramitās², and it is the last of the Brahma-vihāras³. Clearly, it is an important teaching. The Buddha said that the mind of equanimity is abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill will. It is a beautiful mind.

But what is it exactly? This isn't a word that is used a lot in modern parlance. The word equanimity comes from the Latin aequus (equal) and animus (mind)—equal mind. It points to a mind that is balanced, stable, and unshakable. Sometimes equanimity is compared to a mountain. A mountain doesn't care whether it gets rained on or if it gets beaten with snow. It is impartial about whether it is gloomy weather or whether the sun is shining brightly. It is stable, steady, just receiving.

We can actually be like that mountain. It is a pretty extraordinary possibility that in this life we can be imperturbable, that nothing can destabilize the mind. We typically think that we need to have pleasant experiences to be happy and avoid unpleasant experiences. That is the name of the game. But a more reliable, deeper happiness is available that is unaffected by the changing flavors of pleasant and unpleasant.

To be clear, I had someone ask me, "Wait, so with equanimity are we just flatlining? Turning ourselves into an emotionless being?" No, the goal is not to become a zombie. Equanimity is not cold, and it is not indifferent. On the contrary, equanimity provides the non-reactive foundation for compassionate action. Equanimity has heart.

There is a line by T.S. Eliot that describes this well: "Teach me to care and not to care." Often when we deeply care about something or someone, we can get really upset or riled up if anything goes awry. Indifference is when we just don't care at all. Equanimity lives somewhere in the center: Teach me to care and not to care. It is possible to care very deeply, but not in a way that makes us lose our balance.

Two Manifestations of Equanimity

There are two classic manifestations of equanimity that I would like to unpack. The single English word "equanimity" is actually translating two separate Pali words in the Buddhist suttas.

Upekkhā: Looking Over

The most frequent of the two used in the suttas is Upekkhā⁴. This is what we see in the Brahma-vihāras. Upekkhā means "to look over." When I think of that, I think of a bird's-eye view. If there is a wildfire, it is different to be caught inside the wildfire than it is looking over the wildfire from above. That is a palpably different experience.

In practice, to look over our experience is to be mindful of it, to observe it. When we do this, we become less entangled in it. It can give us a feeling of space, and space is a very liberating thing. Spaciousness can provide a lot of equanimity. When I was first learning about this, I wondered what was so special about space. How does that actually help?

Here is an analogy: imagine what it would be like to be trapped in a swimming pool with a Great White shark. Pretty scary. But let's say we take you and that Great White shark and put both of you into the vast ocean. What is that like? A lot more relaxed. This isn't hypothetical—most humans are willing to get into the ocean, and there are actually billions of sharks in there. Practically speaking, that space really makes a difference.

Equanimity allows us to be with the sharks that are in our own hearts in a way where we are not reactive. We can have a shark in our mind and feel about it as though we are with that shark in the vast ocean. There is safety and ease that the space provides.

I remember times in my own practice when I was plagued by a painful self-story or a difficult life circumstance; it was a little bit like living in a shark tank. I was really uncomfortable when those thoughts would get churning. Then I would go on retreat and sit a whole bunch of meditation. Not always, but sometimes, the mind would settle and become still. That thought might float through the mind, but the mind would be completely unmoved by it. It had the ease of being in a great ocean, and the shark became irrelevant—like being in a pool with a tiny toy shark.

Equanimity has this capacity to shift our relationship to what moves through us so that we have that ease. When we relax the thinking mind, the mental pattern of craving and clinging diminishes, and with it, the contraction in the mind and heart. Craving and clinging are felt as a contraction in the body. When that relaxes, the mind-heart relaxes, and we have a felt experience of more space.

I want to be really clear that we don't cultivate equanimity by distancing ourselves from objects. That is not how we get there. On the contrary, we cultivate equanimity through intimacy, not through distancing. We cultivate it by being intimate with our experience—remember Upekkhā, "to look over," to observe. We stay with what is happening. It is through that process that the sense of spaciousness can arise.

Returning to the image of the grandmother, another image comes to mind: a grandmother sitting in her rocking chair looking over her grandchildren. She watches the grandkids having their squabbles, sometimes having great times, sometimes crying. The grandmother just watches it all, unaffected by the childish dramas, loving but unswayed. In Zen, the equanimous mind is sometimes referred to as "Grandmotherly Mind" or "Parental Mind."

If I find myself tangled up in something, sometimes just bringing in the energy of a grandparent helps. As Tempel Smith⁵ says, "There, there, sweetheart. Mama's here. It's okay." Just bring that sweetness. Something I love about this term "Parental Mind" is that it brings together equanimity with mettā (loving-kindness). It has the spaciousness and ease of equanimity but with the warmth of love.

Tatra-majjhattatā: Standing in the Middle

The second Pali word translated as equanimity is Tatra-majjhattatā⁶. If we were to translate that exactly, it might be something like "standing in the middle of all this." Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it as "specific neutrality" or "equipose," but literally it implies being "in the middle."

Right in the middle of our crazy, chaotic lives, can we be upright? Can we stay standing and not be knocked over? That is the energy this word points to: staying balanced even in the midst of chaos.

You might have heard of Daruma dolls, common in Japan. They have a weight in the bottom, and if you push one, it will sway over and pop right back up. You cannot knock them over. This flavor of equanimity is a little like that. Something might try to knock you over, but you come right back to balance.

The inspiration for Daruma dolls is Bodhidharma, the first ancestor who brought Buddhism to China. The Japanese name for Bodhidharma is Bodai-daruma. How fitting that this little toy that can't be knocked over is named after a great Zen master. We are cultivating the mind and heart that can't be knocked over.

Another way we can think of this quality is like standing at the edge of the ocean at the wave break. A huge wave could come, but it does not knock us down. There is a sense of uprightness. You might recognize this experience from a day where you were in a great mood, feeling such well-being that something unfortunate could happen and nothing could ruin it. There is just a sense of equipose and resiliency.

"It's Like This"

One teaching that can support us in contacting equanimity in daily life is from the Thai Forest master Ajahn Sumedho⁷. The teaching is: "It's like this."

Sadness is like this. Joy is like this. Resentment is like this. Oh, resentment is like this. Okay.

Just meeting everything as it comes and as it goes. No preference, really simple.

I was on a retreat a long time ago, and I was ruminating. I think I wanted a change in my job, a promotion or something. All of this wanting mind. At some point, the mind went: "Oh, desire is like this."

And then a little later: "Oh gosh, I've been thinking about this so long. When am I going to get over this? Can I finally put this down?" "Oh, aversion is like this."

It feels so settling to be able to see what is happening in the mind with such clarity. To be able to see desire and aversion and feel relaxed. "Oh, tranquility is like this." Just seeing what is happening and meeting it with that gentle curiosity.

Ajahn Sumedho went on to say: "Be the knower of objects, not the owner of objects."

Typically, whatever we experience, we identify with it. "I like it, I don't like it, I want it, I don't want it." Instead of needing to own it, to take it as self, can we simply know it? Rather than needing to be the sad one, just know: "Sadness is occurring. Sadness is like this." This act of simply knowing is standing in the middle of all this (Tatra-majjhattatā).

How Equanimity Functions

I want to pivot a bit to talk about how equanimity functions. How does this actually work? To understand how equanimity can free us from suffering, it helps to explain how we get stuck in suffering to begin with.

We are all suffering in some way or another. It typically seems like there are myriad things causing suffering in the world. What is so extraordinary about the Buddha's teaching is that he distilled all forms of suffering down to one single source: Craving (Taṇhā)⁸.

The other side of the coin of craving is aversion. Wanting and not wanting, desire and rejection. This force of grasping hold of and pushing away our experience is the Second Noble Truth.

Craving or aversion comes into being because we experience something pleasant or unpleasant. On a very basic level, something happens at one of our sense doors. We see something pleasant, we hear something pleasant, or we feel something with the body that is unpleasant. The baseline reaction is: if it is unpleasant, reject it; if it is pleasant, try to get more of it.

It is a very simple mechanism. "This food is incredible, I have to eat more." "This house is so beautiful, I want to buy it." "This person is so annoying, I need to get away from him." "That squeaky door is so obnoxious, I need to make it stop."

This is happening in our life all day long. Often we are so fixated on the object—the squeaky door or the delicious meal—that we don't see the mechanism of wanting and not wanting running the show. This whole shebang starts with that simplicity of just pleasant and unpleasant.

In your own life, if there is some form of suffering, you might check: Is there wanting and not wanting here? And beneath that, is there just something that is pleasant or unpleasant?

It is actually possible to experience pleasant and unpleasant without reactivity, without that extra layer of grasping. This is where equanimity comes in. When there is equanimity in the mind, we can meet extremely unpleasant experiences without reactivity.

I have a chronic pain condition, and I have spent plenty of time suffering over it on meditation retreats and in daily life. But what I found over time, through sitting and allowing the mind to settle, was that it became really clear that at its most basic level, the pain was just unpleasant. Sometimes very, very unpleasant, but simply put: unpleasant. The "not wanting" was extra. All of the wishing it wasn't there, "When will this go away?", "What am I going to do?", and all the stories that proliferate—that I am a sick person—distill down to just unpleasantness.

When equanimity was well-developed in the mind, the pain was like that toy shark. It had no sway over the mind. The mind didn't have any preference for anything else over the pain. There could be a soft breeze or a bird chirping outside, and the mind received them all as equal visitors.

To know that it is possible to decouple the feeling tone (pleasant/unpleasant) from the reactivity creates a tremendous amount of freedom. All of the suffering comes from that extra layer. There is a common teaching: "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional." You can see how this teaching makes sense in light of this. There can be pain, but the suffering is the extra step of reactivity.

It is possible to ride the roller coaster without feeling like you are always on a roller coaster.

Cultivating Equanimity

Here is a poem from the Therīgāthā⁹, the verses of the early Buddhist nuns:

If your mind becomes firm like a rock and no longer shakes in a world where everything is shaking, your mind will be your greatest friend and suffering will not come your way.

How do we cultivate a mind that no longer shakes? There are many supports, including the three-fold training of Sīla (ethics), Samādhi (concentration), and Paññā (wisdom). If this sounds familiar, these are the divisions of the Eightfold Path.

Sīla (Ethics)

Unethical actions like killing, stealing, and lying create external harm, but they also cause inner turmoil. A mind engaging in harmful activity is going to be riddled by guilt and shame. If you take that mind and try to have it meditate, it is going to have a really difficult time settling down. For those living a virtuous life, it is easier for the mind to settle. Sīla supports Samādhi.

Samādhi (Concentration)

There are two ways Samādhi develops equanimity: through Insight and through Seclusion.

1. Insight: When the mind is steady, it can see clearly into the true nature of things. It can see that all things are impermanent (Anicca), the way suffering truly forms (Dukkha), and the selfless nature of phenomena (Anattā).

Some teachers use the analogy of a telescope. If you try to hold a telescope with your hands to see the stars, you probably won't see them very well because the hands aren't still. But if we put the telescope on a tripod, we can see the stars. Samādhi is like the tripod. When the mind is still, it can see the truth.

A mind that sees everything as impermanent is less likely to be reactive because it knows everything changes. A mind that has insight into suffering is less likely to grab hold of experience because it knows that is Dukkha. A mind that sees the selfless nature of things doesn't have a reason to cling—who is it clinging for? In these ways, the mind can meet experience without being swayed.

2. Seclusion: In the Seven Factors of Awakening, the sixth factor is concentration and the seventh is equanimity. Concentration supports equanimity. Joseph Goldstein says:

"Equanimity arises out of concentration because concentration has the power to keep the mind secluded from the hindrances. This seclusion then allows for balance and neutrality to be established, and the mind to be unmoving in the face of pleasure and pain."

Concentration secludes the mind from the hindrances—wanting, not wanting, restlessness, doubt. Imagine a little seed that is constantly being blown around by the wind. It is never still enough to take root. But if it is allowed to be still for long enough, that little seed will take root, and then even when great winds come, it won't be blown away.

In the same way, when you sit and commit yourself to being still, you are like that seed. Your roots can grow deep. Even when the "Worldly Winds"¹⁰ are blowing—pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame—you are unmovable. Balanced, stable, unshakable. Like a great redwood tree in a storm.

You can stand upright in the middle of all this—in the middleness—and still be free. Rooted and free.

Let's sit for a minute together.

[Silence]

If your mind becomes firm like a rock and no longer shakes in a world where everything is shaking, your mind will be your greatest friend and suffering won't come your way.

Q&A

Question: I especially appreciated the two different translations for equanimity, both "in the midst" and the "bird's-eye view."

Mei: Thank you, yeah. Isn't that interesting?

Question: I was wondering if equanimity could be almost on a spectrum? I'm thinking for severe grief or hard moments, if there is a touching into it for a few moments? It feels like at times I search for equanimity, and I can touch it, but not be there very long.

Mei: Absolutely. That is an astute observation. Equanimity can come in and out of experience. You might be able to touch it for a moment and have a little ease, and then another wave of grief or anger comes. It is kind of titrated. That is one way equanimity is experienced. On the flip side, sometimes equanimity can be quite stable, but often that takes retreat practice.

There is also a spectrum of intensity. It can be light equanimity—"I'm not quite as upset as I would normally be." I am still upset, but not as upset. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there is that real sense of equipose and stillness, completely unable to be swayed. They can come forth in many ways.

Thank you so much for your kind attention and for your practice. It was a pleasure to be here with you. Take care, folks.