November 2021

The Buddha taught that the Four Brahmaviharas, or Four Immeasurables, are: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. All four are certainly of vital importance at this turbulent time in history. Witnessing and experiencing the myriad natural disasters, worldwide pandemics, political violence, intolerance of all kinds, and so on can give one a feeling of dystopian malaise. Consequently, building a foundation of equanimity right now is critical for our spiritual well-being.

Equanimity is the English word most often used to translate the Pali term upekkha. Since equanimity is not a word often heard in everyday speech, a dictionary definition may be helpful in establishing a context of meaning. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “evenness of mind especially under stress,” and “right disposition : BALANCE.” Synonyms include composure, equilibrium, self-possession, serenity. Generally, “equanimity suggests a habit of mind that is only rarely disturbed under great strain.”

Unfortunately, it often seems that our default habits of mind are based on a toxic mix of the Three Poisons of greed/anger/ignorance, which agitate the mind and keep us unbalanced. It is like weeds in a garden, which thrive naturally without any help from us, whereas flowers need our nourishing efforts like watering and fertilizing.

Unlike emotional responses to stressful circumstances, which are reactive, responding with equanimity is proactive: it is something we can actively cultivate in ourselves. Orienting ourselves to the world with habitual equanimity is the solid ground in which the other Immeasurables—loving-kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy—can sprout and flourish. Equanimity is the still and centered point between the opposites generalized in the Eight Worldly Distractions of gain•loss, honor•dishonor, praise•blame, pleasure•pain.

Our primary means of cultivating habitual equanimity is by pure meditation. In our very first meditation instruction we are taught to just let our thoughts and memories and emotions—the things we misperceive as defining us—to arise and pass away. Simply by not clinging to pleasurable thoughts and memories, and by not pushing away unhappy or distressful thoughts and emotions, we find the still point of balance between them. That is where we find composure, equilibrium, self-possession, serenity. This is our True Place between the opposites and the springboard for experiential insight into True Reality beyond the opposites. By proving this Reality for ourselves on our cushions, we are better able to act from that Place when facing the challenges and vicissitudes of daily life. And mindful awareness of the Precepts as we go about our day helps keep us from turning our heart away from that Place of stillness and equanimity.

In the Wild, White Goose,¹the autobiography of her time training in Japan, Reverend Master Jiyu recounts an experience that is a practical example of actively cultivating equanimity in the face of adversity. She is having great difficulty in being allowed to train with the other monks, and is facing persistent and active resistance from many of them. Her sense of loneliness and discouragement threatens to drive her from the temple. Then she realizes,

The only thing I can possibly do in order to learn anything is to accept, in blind faith, everything that is happening to me, believing that it is all for my good, whatever it may be.

Reverend Master could have reacted emotionally, with self-righteous bitterness and resentment, and stormed out of the temple. Instead, she chose to accept the situation as it was and learn what it had to teach her about herself. Later in the book she says that this resolve was a catalyst for her first deep spiritual awakening (kensho). And many others have attested that, at least in retrospect if not at the time, periods of great suffering have been pivotal in taking them deeper into spiritual training; that times of challenge can bring out the best in us. (See Reverend Master Olaf’s series of articles for examples.)

As Reverend Master’s story shows, the key to turning suffering into opportunity is that the situation must first be accepted as it is, without projecting our desires and opinions upon it. From that place what, if anything, is good to do will reveal itself. And it is important to note that equanimity is not ultimately passive indifference. As the Wild, White Goose makes clear, just by resolutely continuing to do her training despite the obstacles, and with the help and support of her master and a few other monks, Reverend Master was—and is—of great benefit to herself and many others, down to the present day.

In the 1930’s the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr composed a prayer that, in its popular form, became known as the Serenity Prayer. It touched a chord with millions of people, and was eventually adopted as a kind of mantra by twelve-step programs. When I contemplate equanimity, it often comes to mind as its distilled expression:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

There are many circumstances in life we cannot change (and which do not need us to change them). And, there are many aspects of our selfish selves that we can change through the practice of meditation and Precepts. They enable us to develop the wisdom to live from the still and centered point of equanimity in a challenging world.

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