Mindfulness Practice as a Training in Equanimity
"Equanimity is the fruit, as we have seen, of regular mindfulness practice. It represents the growing ability to be attentive and compassionate with a wide range of experiences. As we practice, both formally in meditation and more informally in daily life, we note what takes away our equanimity: 'Oh, that was a difficult experience. I didn't have much equanimity with that'; or, 'Oh, I wanted that situation to turn out this way so badly, and I really got lost for a while.' We may also begin to be aware of the near enemies, as we are alert for indifference, denial, resignation, complacency, and the like.
"We can thus develop equanimity in very ordinary situations, as we simply keep paying attention. Nor, as many beginning meditators believe, do we even need to be particularly calm or tranquil in our everyday lives in order to be equanimous. I may be incredibly busy and active, and remain equanimous. I may have a very tempestuous mind, filled with thoughts, and yet be equanimous. There can be an equanimity that is the stillness in the midst of activity, the steadiness in the midst of great movement, the calm in the storm.
Nyanaponika Thera calls such profound equanimity the 'inner center of the world.' It is as if we have in ourselves the counterpoint of the Jewish tradition's legendary thirty-six Just Persons, the Lamed-Vov (the term simply means "thirty-six"). The Lamed-Vov are typically quite ordinary persons wholly dedicated to lives of goodness and service, yet their existence and actions keep the whole universe in balance. They are the 'hearts of the world,' although they are usually unaware of their roles. But without even one of them, so the legend goes, the universe would lose its center, and the suffering of the world would poison the souls of the newborn.
Formal Equanimity Practice
"In the context of the four brahmavihara, there are two further traditional ways of practicing equanimity: the cultivation of equanimity by itself and the balancing of equanimity with the other brahmavihara, which we will examine in the next section. Equanimity is typically practiced by itself along with the formal practices of lovingkindness, compassion, and joy. As with these other practices, the meditator develops a phrase or set of phrases that is repeated continually in application to oneself and a range of others. The classical phrase is: 'All beings are the owners of their karma. Their happiness and unhappiness depend on their actions, not on my wishes for them.'
"The meaning of this phrase is that our actions and responses to our present experiences are key to our happiness or unhappiness. As we saw in chapter 3, the Buddha explicates the notion of karma in terms of intention and the possibility of free action in the present moment. So the above phrase can be interpreted as suggesting that it is our response in the present moment that is crucial for happiness, rather than only past events.
"Partly because of the ways in which the notion of karma has been misunderstood, Western practitioners have often developed new or modified equanimity phrases to help them navigate some of the complex territory involving equanimity, karma, and action, including the following:
"May we all accept things as they are.
May we be undisturbed by the comings and goings of events.
I will care for you but cannot keep you from suffering.
I wish you happiness but cannot make your choices for you.
No matter what I wish for, things are as they are.
"Some of these phrases also require some interpretation. For example, if we use a term like acceptance to point to an aspect of equanimity, it seems important to distinguish two connotations of acceptance. On the one hand, acceptance implies recognition: 'I accept [that is, I don't deny] that we have an organizational problem.' On the other hand, acceptance can suggest resignation to the fact or even moral approval: 'I accept that there is racism; this is the way that it is and has to be.' Acceptance in the former sense can lead directly to an intention to make changes, whereas the latter connotation of acceptance may block action or rationalize inaction.
"Similarly, to remain 'undisturbed' may mean to learn to work through sometimes being disturbed, angry, or upset about what is occurring. To recognize that I 'cannot keep you from suffering' and 'cannot make your choices for you' is not to deny our interdependence and mutual influence, but it is to affirm a certain degree of individual autonomy and responsibility. To say that 'things are as they are,' whatever my wishes, is not to say that I should not attempt to transform them in the future.
Exercise: Equanimity Practice
"Use one of the above traditional or contemporary phrases (or perhaps some other phrase). Work with the phrase first for a 'neutral' person, one toward whom you have no particular attraction or aversion. Then, work with the phrase in relation to a benefactor, then a friend, then a 'difficult' person, then yourself; and finally all beings.
"You may find it helpful to use the technique suggested in chapter 5 for loving kindness practice: first develop an image of the being (human or nonhuman) toward whom you are cultivating equanimity, then bring your attention to the center of your chest (the "heart center"), then say the phrase, and finally listen for the resonance in your body, heart, and mind.
"You may do this practice initially for 10 minutes at a time, before or after your main contemplative practice, or for a period of 30-60 minutes.
Balancing Equanimity, Lovingkindness, Compassion, and Joy
"A third way is to develop a balance between equanimity and the other three qualities: lovingkindness, compassion, and joy. This is a particularly helpful and skillful practice in terms of working through the many near enemies of equanimity (as well as the near enemies of the other three qualities). Nyanaponika writes:
" 'Lovingkindness imparts to equanimity its selflessness, its boundless nature and even its fervor. For fervor, too, transformed and controlled, is part of perfect equanimity, strengthening its power of keen penetration and wise restraint.
" 'Compassion guards equanimity from falling into a cold indifference, and keeps it from indolent or selfish isolation. Until equanimity has reached perfection, compassion urges it to enter again and again the battle of the world, in order to be able to stand the test, by hardening and strengthening itself. . .
" 'Sympathetic joy gives to equanimity the mild serenity that softens its stern appearance. It is the divine smile on the face of the Enlightened One, a smile that persists in spite of his deep knowledge of the world's suffering, a smile that gives solace and hope, fearlessness and confidence. . .
" 'Equanimity. . .gives to lovingkindness an even, unchanging firmness and loyalty. It endows it with the great virtue of patience. Equanimity furnishes compassion with an even, unwavering courage and fearlessness, enabling it to face the awesome abyss of misery and despair which confronts boundless compassion again and again. To the active side of compassion, equanimity is the calm and firm hand led by wisdom — indispensable to those who want to practice the difficult art of helping others. And here again equanimity means patience, the patient devotion to the work of compassion.'
Practices to Cultivate Equanimity in Relational and Collective Contexts
"A number of further equanimity practices have been developed in relational and collective contexts. These contemporary practices often reflect a modification of traditional Buddhist practices.
"In retreats with my colleague Diana Winston, we have often opened up the territory of equanimity with a short exercise, in which we invite participants to answer the question: 'What's difficult for you to accept?' After identifying what's difficult, it is then possible for them to bring mindfulness and inquiry to the area that has surfaced. They typically explore reactivity and unacknowledged pain related to particular states of affairs, assumptions and expectations about what should have happened, and a passion for justice. Such inquiry can help equanimity to arise.
"In August 1991, near the end of a six-day Buddhist Peace Fellowship Summer Institute, we heard of the attempted coup on Mikhail Gorbachev, an attempt to end the policies of glasnost ('openness' in public discussions about present and past problems) and perestroika (economic reform). Some two weeks earlier, I bad just returned from a couple of weeks in the Soviet Union, meeting many new friends in Moscow from all over the Soviet Union at a gathering on humanistic and transpersonal psychology and visiting the birthplaces of two of my grandparents in Lithuania, amid barricades and Soviet tanks. The morning we heard the coup attempt, we told our gathering of about 150 people the breaking news. We invited them to remain in silence for ten minutes, bringing their attention, lovingkindness, and compassion to the people of the Soviet Union and then voicing the names of particular people there, whether friends, acquaintances, or public figures. As tears fell far many, we heard the softly spoken names: 'Slava. . .Grazina. . .Alexander. . .Elena. . .Yasha. . .Ernestas. . .Egle.'
"Since then, I and others have used variants of this practice many times: as a quiet group meditation to bring attention to what is either difficult or joyous in the participants' lives; in regular BASE meetings as a closing meditation, naming those people and places in difficulty, sometimes with specific details; at a retreat at Auschwitz led by Bernie Glassman, where the names of the dead were chanted; and on the one-year anniversary of September 11, in 2002, when hundreds of participants at Spirit Rock Meditation Center voiced, after a period of silent meditation, the names and situations of those whom they knew who had been significantly affected by the attack.
"I believe that this basic practice is a kind of equanimity exercise. It is a tool for groups to be present to difficult events in a balanced and nonreactive manner. It suggests a mature equanimity that may simultaneously express lovingkindness, compassion, or joy and that invokes the larger web of relationships, beyond the separate self, to which Joanna Macy pointed in her discussion of equanimity. It is as if to say, as Sylvia Boorstein suggests: 'These are the difficult things happen to people. . . . .They happen. They are bearable. We are not alone. This is part of being human.'
Equanimity and Action
"The life and teachings of the Buddha, as well as the lives of many of the great engaged spiritual teachers of our time, suggest that it is a serious confusion to interpret or practice equanimity as a separation from action. This confusion is linked to the many near enemies or distortions of equanimity, such as indifference, passivity, resignation, and acquiescence to injustice.
"The Buddha, for example, was continuously active as a teacher for forty-five years, offering a way of transformative practice that linked equanimity and action. In such practice, as we have seen, one learns to be equanimous and nonreactive about what is happening or has happened, while still acting energetically for awakening, for liberation for oneself and others.
"But how do we practice equanimity in our everyday action and in our social action? Here, I mention briefly four general guidelines for such action.
"First, we need continually to balance the practice of equanimity with the practices of lovingkindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. Without the development of these other qualities, what may look like equanimity will more likely be one or more of its distorted forms. It means very little, for example, to claim to be equanimous about war or racism if we are not deeply present in various ways to the pain and suffering associated with these phenomena, if the equanimity is not suffused with compassion, or if we do not simultaneously deeply want, through our lovingkindness, the well-being of those affected.
"This suggests a second guideline: that our practice of equanimity will be in large part a purification practice, in which we discern and transform the various distortions of equanimity in ourselves and others. We examine the aversion to suffering that may be behind indifference, the myriad forms of attachment to privilege that may be expressed in complacency and distancing, the fear or even self-doubt linked with acquiescence or resignation in relation to injustice and oppression, or the denial or delusion that may ground many of the distortions.
"Third, we become students of the causes and conditions that lead to particular forms of pain and suffering, as well as to possible positive change. We study history; we carry out social analysis; we study our own and others' personal histories and the ways in which our bodies, hearts, and minds work. We develop an ability to know, in a particular situation or in relation to a particular issue, how and when to intervene. Sometimes, an intended outcome is possible and sometimes not, yet in knowing well the broad context (even if we cannot know in advance the outcome), we strengthen our equanimity and our ability to act, whatever the circumstances.
"The Buddha, for example, tried three times to stop a war by intervening with the attacking king. However, he did not intervene a fourth time, and war ensued, which led to the defeat of his own people, the Sakyans. The Buddha later acknowledged the great strength of the forces for war, showing an equanimity that manifested itself both in his great efforts to prevent suffering and in an understanding of the power of the causes and conditions of such suffering. Similarly, well after the end of the war in Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh remarked that the 'conditions for success in terms of a political victory were not present' for the Buddhist movement in Vietnam. Yet at the same time, he did not regret the years of effort dedicated to ending violence and increasing compassion.
"This suggests a final, basic equanimity practice: to act continually and devotedly, yet without attachment to the immediate outcome or fruits of our actions. This too could be called a purification practice; we are taken through all the difficult territories where we want certain outcomes and don't want others, where we want to 'win' and not to 'lose,' where we want our agendas to be met."
