Balance in the Storm, Part 2

Just a few weeks ago some dear friends had their first baby, five days later my father died, and the next day my husband unexpectedly retired from a full career of hard work. There it was; a tiny bundle of enormous love and joy, a puddle of gratitude and sadness, and the dismay and excitement of what’s to come. Even though I thought I understood that everything changes every moment of the day, that life is one continual accommodation, I still felt disoriented.

One of my mentors, Sylvia Boorstein, has a simple, yet poignant way of addressing the struggling mind. When difficulty arises, she says, “It’s not what I wanted, but it’s what I got.” When we have the spaciousness of mind to see clearly without a bunch of added stories, opinions and judgments, we’re more able to respond wisely and appropriately, get a better outcome, and be at ease. It’s lemons to lemonade. Equanimity is the capacity to make room for it all, to say “this, too.”

Equanimity is also inherently linked to karma. Karma is properly translated as “action.” Understanding that all actions have consequences, and the only things we can ever truly control are our own actions, we may as well let go of trying to fix or change anyone else, and direct our efforts toward our own wholesome and skillful actions. When we do this, we naturally become less attached to outcomes because we know that when our actions are rooted in insight and grounded in the ethics of non-harming, the outcomes will naturally lead towards the long-term welfare and happiness of ourselves and others.

Here is a practice I learned from James Baraz, author of Awakening Joy. The purpose of it is to help us accept the way things are and understand that no matter how much we love someone, no matter how much we want to protect them, no matter how much we might think we know what is best, we cannot prevent them from suffering, no matter what. This goes for ourselves, too.

From a relaxed place, bring to mind an image of someone you love and silently say:

“You are the owner of your karma. Your happiness and unhappiness are dependent upon your actions, not on my wishes for you.” 

Think about it, let it sink in and say it again.

As you work with this practice, you’ll see how true it is. Sometimes it’s quite astonishing to really get it, to deeply understand that our happiness and unhappiness really are dependent on our own actions, our own responses, our own belief systems, and not on anything outside of ourselves. As this sinks in and takes root, our equanimity grows and becomes an accessible, integrated and natural way of being.

For more on equanimity, see the July 8^th post on this blog, “Equanimity, the 7^th Factor of Awakening.”

Balance in the Storm, Part 1

Out of the soil of metta

Grows the bloom of compassion,

To be watered by tears of joy

Under the cool shade of equanimity 

     - Longchenpa, 14thC Tibetan Master

Finally we come to the last of the Brahma-Viharas, equanimity, upekkha in Pali. Even though equanimity is classically taught as the natural summation of loving kindness, compassion, and appreciative joy, it actually functions as a continuous balancing current, an opposable thumb. And even though we can focus on developing metta, developing compassion and joy, none of them really exist in isolation.

Try it out sometime. Can you really wish goodwill to someone without the thread of compassion? Can you really feel the joy in appreciating someone else’s success without the support of goodwill and kindness? Can you feel compassion without kindness? It doesn’t really work. With equanimity as the through line, the brahma-viharas are mutually supportive and mutually dependent. They function as an integrated whole.

“When you feel bad, let it be your link to others’ suffering. When you feel good, let it be your link with others’ joy.” 

   –Pema Chodron

Just like loving kindness, compassion and appreciative joy, equanimity has its “near enemy” or subtle opposite, and in this case it’s indifference. We might think we’re balancing and navigating the big and small storms of our lives with, but if we do it by looking the other way, erecting impenetrable walls, cutting ourselves off from our own hearts, ignoring our direct experience, we actually create denial and indifference, not equanimity. Our exterior may appear calm and balanced, but our interior is working hard to protect ourselves from difficulty and pain.

I like to think of equanimity as the balanced spacious stillness of mind that easily accommodates everything that naturally arises as it happens, a relaxed even-mindedness that allows me to experience whatever occurs with soft, curious, wise resilience. If I can soften my edges, there’s nothing too sharp to bump up against. Painful experiences don’t sting as much or for as long, and it’s easier to come down from and let go of even the most wonderful, exciting and joyous events. Softening allows me to release the grip of grasping and craving, and not push so hard against adversity.  

Here is a practice for exploring and cultivating equanimity. It can be used anywhere, either in formal meditation practice or standing in what you thought was going to be the fastest line at the grocery store. I’ve adapted it from James Baraz’ book Awakening Joy.

Settle in and take a few comfortable mindful breaths.  Let your awareness move slowly through your body arriving, settling, softening and breathing. Silently say to yourself:

May I have balance and equanimity in this moment

or

May I be centered in this moment

Imagine what being balanced and centered feel like, drop into that. Try to allow any thoughts or emotions that arise to just be there, without needing to grasp onto or push them away. Repeat the phrases as long as you like and see if you can gently relax into equanimity.

Growing Happiness

It’s easy to be frightened, to feel cynical, to judge and criticize, to feel envy or jealousy, and to generally drop into a place of contention without even noticing. Our culture gives us nonstop messages of needing things to be other. It keeps us seeking the next best thing, rarely supporting the value of stopping and enjoying what is already here as it is, without the need to fix or change.

Mindfulness practice helps us see the habit patterns of the mind. Once we see them and get familiar with them, we start to see whether they lead to happiness or unhappiness, stress or ease. And when this happens, we can make a deliberate choice about how to respond and how to engage.

Rick Hansen, the neuropsychologist and author of The Buddha’s Brain, and Hardwiring Happiness, teaches that the brain has a natural negativity bias. It’s like velcro for the negative and teflon for the positive. Our basic survival instinct recognizes and hooks into danger much more quickly than it recognizes and hooks into peace, joy, love and the general sense that things are alright. But we can change this. We can look for the good, deliberately.

The Buddha said “what one frequently thinks and ponders upon will become the inclination of the mind.” For me, I know that if I keep playing the worn out tape of an old painful relationship, what happened, what didn’t happen, I’ll get stuck in the sticky gooey rut of the story. I’ll likely become sad or resentful, angry or hurt all over again. The repetitive thoughts themselves will strengthen the imprint of the memory in my mind making the difficult feelings easy to access, easy feel, cloud the mind and lead nowhere helpful. Joseph Goldstein says “repetitive thoughts are a dead end.” When I can recognize this, I can more easily stop the habitual thought pattern, recognize it for what it is, and avoid replaying the old hurt.

The bright shining spot here is that the same is true for good memories, good thoughts, and positive experiences, those that nurture and support our well-being and bring happiness. They, too, imprint in the memory. When we take in and deliberately recognize joy, happiness, love, a sense of things being alright, we incline the mind towards well-being and reinforce those neuronal connections. Not only do we look for the good, but we intentionally take the time to let in it and soak it up.

As these kinds of habit patterns take root and grow, we have greater and easier access to our own innate capacity to feel joy. Our happiness grows. As our own happiness grows, it becomes easier to feel joy for someone else’s good fortune. This is mudita, appreciative joy; the completely natural expression of the open, available and steady heart.

And here’s a little advice from The Dalai Lama…

"It is important to understand how much your own happiness is linked to that of others. There is no individual happiness totally independent of others.”  

“If we derive happiness from the happiness of others, we have at least six billion more opportunities to be happy.”

From Compassion to Joy

Mudita, or appreciative joy is the next of the Brahma-Viharas, the natural and beautiful reflections of the wise heart. Classically these are taught in order; loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), appreciative joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha) because they tend to develop that way. Ultimately, they arise on their own in response to experience.

I’m a sap. I frequently cry in movies or while reading books whether sad, funny, or happy, and even at sporting events when something really fantastic happens. I can remember leaping out of my seat and shouting for joy at my son’s high school basketball games when one of the bench players came in the game, got the block or made a basket,  thoroughly embarrassing my son and especially my daughter if she was nearby. That kind of joy, while really exciting is not mudita, it is exuberance, what the Buddha taught as the “near enemy” or close opposite of appreciative joy. My outburst of exhilaration in the moment caused my kids embarrassment, the people around me to roll their eyes, and left me feeling a little foolish.

A more accurate expression of mudita is the kind of deep joy we feel at the wedding of someone close to us, the birth of a baby to someone we love, when a dear friend gets the job she’s been working towards, or any way we spontaneously feel joy for another’s success. It’s joy completely free from envy or jealousy. It is joy that springs from love.

For the most part, one who is free of ill will and can whole-heartedly wish kindness towards another develops and easily expresses compassion. A compassionate person can naturally feel joy in another’s success. And from this place equanimity naturally evolves. Each of the brahma-viharas is an expression of the heart in its most stable and unobstructed state.

Realistically though, sometimes we do have ill will, don’t feel compassionate, cannot feel joy for another’s success, and cannot accommodate the conditions of our lives with any degree of equanimity. We get knocked around because that’s how life is. 

But, with mindfulness practice we do start seeing more clearly the truth of impermanence, how everything changes every minute of the day, the gritty experience of suffering in all its forms (anxiety, stress, sorrow, loss, grief, anger, blame, shame, pain,) and that things happen because other things happen. Nothing exists purely on its own, but is utterly dependent on myriad causes to create a single condition.

Think about what it takes to create a single piece of paper; the seedling that grew out of fertile soil into a tree, the clouds that generated the rain to water the tree, the person who cut down the tree had to be born and become strong enough to do the job, tools made from other elements had to be used, fossil fuels necessary to transport the logs to the mill had to be extracted, on and on, just to make a sheet of paper.  

When we really see the complexity of our interconnection and interdependence, our individual self-involvement naturally diminishes, and we are more likely to act from a place of greater balance, appreciation, compassion and kindness.

  

Joy

Live in joy,

In love,

Even among those who hate.

Live in joy,

In health,

Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy,

In peace,

Even among the troubled.

Look within.

Be still.

Free from fear and attachment,

Know the sweet joy of the way.

-The Buddha, the Dhammapada