Tara Brach - A Heart that is Ready for Anything- The Gateway of Equanimity - Part I

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

In a world where the pace and magnitude of change is beyond anything ever experienced by humans, we are being called to cultivate the qualities of calm, inner balance and a steady, wise heart. These two talks look at the conditioning that fuels our emotional reactivity, and the practices that cultivate equanimity, resilience and a full, openhearted presence. We dedicate to these practices for the sake of our own freedom, and the wellbeing of all beings.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome friends. One of my favorite phrases comes from a Buddhist master is a heart that is ready for anything. And so I want to start off just inviting you to senses with me, what it means. that feeling of a heart that's ready, that in some way is entirely open to all the possibilities and has that capacity to hold whatever happens. So imagine that for a moment, that your heart is ready for anything. It's ready for hurts and losses for dying, for joy, for love, for beauty.

so you're considering what could be ahead, personal life, ahead for this world, and what would it be like if you had a heart that is ready for anything? Can you sense a bit how trusting that your heart is ready for anything, how it frees you to actually live these moments? You can just sense. Could that allow you to stop controlling so much and just to cherish the life that's here. Or to give you more moments of true presence. So I start with this today because, and I think we can feel this, that the winds of change are picking up both in terms of speed and intensity. And it's hard for our nervous systems to catch up.

You know, our minds are predicting machines, and it's hard to predict. And so as our world and this is talking about climate and politics, economies, AI, as our world and by extension our lives become increasingly uncertain and unpredictable, so many feel this kind of not prepared. It's hard to put words on it, but stressed, tensing against what's around the corner, on our way somewhere else, grasping at what can help us feel more comfortable, including our new narratives about what's happening, but not really here, now, and not able to live our moments. So in Buddhism, there's a description of what are called the four Brahma Viharas, and that means the four divine abodes.

And these are four different pathways of coming home to the sacred or the divine. And they are, and Buddhists have lists, this is one of the lists, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. I think of equanimity as the mental atmosphere that comes with a heart that's ready for anything. And equanimity, it's the quality of mental balance, calmness, even-mindedness, it's that ability to stay steady and non-reactive in the face of whatever ups and downs come, all the joys and sorrows. So, equanimity is what actually lets us be fully here now. Because if there's that steady heart in the midst of things, we don't have to be so busy

trying to control and defend and protect. The other thing is that equanimity is what actually allows the other divine abodes of love, compassion, and joy to flow fully. We have to have a certain quality of presence and openness, not being on our way somewhere else, not defending, not protecting, in order to feel the fullness, of love or compassion or joy. So, eponymity is this beautiful capacity. We all have it. And this is why we're talking about it right now. It's something we can cultivate and strengthen. And I wanted to reflect on this today because it feels that our current world is asking us to purposely develop this.

It's what will give us an inner refuge of calm and actually the resilience, the steady heart we need in moving forward. And it serves us all around. I often think of Zen Master Tignat Han. And he talked a lot about the refugees from Vietnam and how they'd be on these very small boats, you know, leaving the mainland. And there'd be storms and there'd be pirates. It's this constant great danger. And as he described it, if one person could be calm and present and open-hearted, you know, have that equanimity, their amazing help to everyone else. And he says that our earth is like a small boat and we need such people to inspire us.

He says, only with such people will our situation improve. and the Buddhist text tell us that you are that person. Please be your best self. Be that person. So we're all on this planet, the same boat. And as we can feel, our collective psyche is really the opposite of equanimity. In Buddhism, it's called the enemy of equanimity. And that we're really in a kind of limbic hijack. Like everybody is, on that boat is freaking out in some way.

It's very much driven by the survival brain so that on a large scale, people across the globe are caught in fear and emotional reactivity. And it blocks executive function. It blocks open-heartedness. It puts us in fight-flight mode, which leads, of course, to violence and authoritarian government. and gross accumulations of wealth, you know, grasping and the wanton destruction of this precious living earth. On an individual level, this limbic hijacked, and we know this, it leads to anxiety, loneliness, or sometimes to real numbness and apathy. Okay, so a little switch in tone here. There's a cartoon, and you see on it these two mice, and they're each on one of those.

spinning wheels and one's racing and racing and racing and looking totally exhausted and kind of panicked and just at its end and the other one's sitting at the bottom of the wheel the wheel is still relaxed refreshed and the caption is i had an epiphany we need to step off the wheel of that primitive conditioning and so cultivating equanimity is what gets us off the wheel of reactivity. It lets us abide in a heart that's ready for anything. So we're going to look at this more. I'd like to first look at the shadow of equanimity because it's not that hard to in some way present or even think maybe there's equanimity when there's not. And the near enemy, as they describe it, of equanimity is indifference, our avoidance. And one of the misunderstands,

on the spiritual path is that, you know, for the sake of growing equanimity, not to deal with emotions or conflicts and relationships. There's just sense, well, oh, it's all these broiling, reactive emotions and I want to stay clear and centered. So it's kind of not acknowledging, you know, our own hurt, our anger, our fear. And the bottom line is there is no equanimity that comes through avoiding the waves of this changing life. Similarly, some of the misunderstandings are that there can be a kind of passivity or disengagement with the larger society. And people might claim this very equanimous, big-picture view and say, well, it's more

important to stay calm and remove than to get mixed up in processes that are filled with negativity. And, you know, in geological time, this will just be a blip. People can, let's say, claim equanimity regarding climate change and say, it's actually indifference. It's there because of kind of a refusal to let the heart be touched by the massive suffering of vulnerable populations. You know, it's Somalia and Nigeria. Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, those losing homes and wildfires and floods. In other words, privilege being removed from the impact of some of the horrors in this world can lead to a false sense of equanimity about the world.

When I think of my mom a lot, the last decade of her life, she came to Buddhist retreats with us, and she came to my weekly class. We'd drive in and out of my class in Bethesda together. So my mom was a progressive kind of activist type throughout her life. And I remember the night I did a talk on equanimity, not reacting to this changing world with grasping or with aversion. And we drove back from class and she was quiet. I was thinking, ah, she's kind of rested.

and presence, but then she launched in. And she says, you know, and this is really how she would speak, I'm there with Buddhism, except this equanimity thing. She says, it makes everything so, so vanilla. It strips us of our personality and our caring and our responsibility to act. I mean, shouldn't I feel aversion to racism, to war, you know, shouldn't I feel passion towards helping the most vulnerable, helping the earth. Darling, the Buddha got it wrong with this one. Honestly, I kid you not. This is my mom. And of course, because she's my mother, I could feel my own the heat of my own indignation. She really wasn't listening. Of course, I addressed indifference, and I could feel the urge to set her straight. And I would have, except I had just given a talk about

equanimity. So I, you know, okay, pause, step off the wheel, breathe. My heart had been ready for anything but my mom's contrariness. So here's the deal, that equanimity is the quality of presence that enables our activism to be transformational, that enables our responses to each other to be truly loving and wise. I often refer to Gandhi who took that day a week. It was absolutely deep part of his life ritual, a day a week to ensure that his activism, his acting was coming from wisdom, not from anger, not from ego. I think of Valerie Carr, who many of you may have heard of. She's a friend and an activist. She's known for revolutionary love. And she likens the process of activism to birthing. That when the

contractions arise, first we just come into presence and breathe with what's there. And then we push. Breathe and push. Okay, so back to my mom and her fear that non-reacting meant vanilla. and by the way, she knew that I strongly dislike vanilla ice cream. I like, I dislike vanilla anything. So it wasn't random, her choice of words. Equanimity does not mean we stop enjoying the wonders of life or stop feeling the pain of the sorrows. So it's not that kind of passive, disengaged, letting life be out there.

I remember a conversation between a coach and a player, and the coach is saying, What is it with you, son? Is it apathy or indifference? And the response was, I don't know and I don't care. Which, of course, is subtle aversion. Equanimity means not being caught inside our reactivity of grasping our version. It's responding from presence. There's a very famous verse from William Blake. He writes, He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy. He who kisses the joy as it flies by lives in eternity sunrise. Everything is changing. Can we kiss the joy that flies by? Can we bow to the sorrows? Can we live in the vast, awake space,

that includes the changing flow, the heart that's ready for anything. So in terms of physiology, equanimity is our natural state when it rest. For our nervous system, it's correlated with parasympathetic activity, which is restorative. The limbic system is not activated. The brain waves correspond to relax, receptive, open-focused state. So this is a naturally occurring state. It's possible for all of us. And if the limbic system gets activated and we're not aware of it, we lose equanimity.

There's a shift in brain waves, the mind narrows and contracts and when it's strong, when there's like a limbic hijacked, we're run by our survival brain. We lose access to our whole brain and to our whole heart. So, if you want to cultivate equanimity, it helps to look closely and understand how the movement away from equanimity happens. Because for most of it happens continuously. There's a chain of reactions that go on and that go on very quickly and unconsciously. And the way it goes is this, and this is a real simplification.

When there's pleasantness, let's say a pleasant taste, there's an interpretation, this is good, there's a feeling of wanting, and we grasp for it, we want more. When there's an unpleasant sensation, let's say, feel all of a sudden a kind of stabbing pain in our back, this is bad. We feel aversion, and then there's a reflex to get rid of it, get painkillers, ibuprofen, whatever. Similarly, let's say emotionally, someone compliments us. The mind goes, this is good. We feel some sense of wanting and there's more drawn to the person. Someone insults us.

This is bad. We feel aversion. There's a kind of pushing away or wanting to defend or get back at the person. Again, very fast limbic process. We're not watching those phases in our brain and body. something happens, there's an interpretation of good, bad, right, wrong, there's feelings, we react. There's a story that's about rural high school students decide to play a prank at school, and they released three goats into the school and each had a number painted on it, number

one, number two, and number four. And the school teachers and administrators frantically, the whole day, racing around looking for goat number three. Silly example, I know. But when we're caught in that kind of chain reaction, the Buddhists call it Papantra. Again, another wonderful word, a pancha. And it's the cycling of thoughts and feelings and then reactive actions. They keep looping and keep us caught. So if you investigate a typical day, what you find, is there are many swaths of being in that paponcha, whether reacting to the news or to demands on your time, deadlines, different conversations that come up, emails, texts, we go into that kind of trance of, I like this, I don't like that, and then the spinning. When that's happening, we're not all

there. We're not all here. Victor Frankel writes very, this is one of the most famous phrases in between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space is your power and your freedom. This is the natural space of eponymity.

The space after the stimulus and it becomes increasingly accessible with the intentional practice of mindfulness, of recognizing and allowing what is happening. And here I want to emphasize, for any of you that want to be more intentional about cultivating equanimity, in particular, bringing mindfulness to how we're reacting to what's happening. Is there wanting or grasping? That sense of, I want something more or different, or I don't like this, I want to make it go away. Because here's the thing about equanimity. You can sustain or regain access when there's grasping or aversion as long as it's in awareness.

Okay, so by way of example, my husband Jonathan and I have been COVID virgins until election day. And about a week after I felt a lot better and then had a rebound. So I've actually had a lot of time in recent weeks for meditating both with physical and emotional unpleasantness. with time to reckon with uncertainty about what's ahead, in terms of the COVID, how to keep cancelling things and thinking I could do things

and then canceling again and that whole vulnerability about, can I show up for something? And of course, with the world, the news has felt so wall-to-wall bad, and that's generally how news of the world comes through. I'm just seeing the reactions in my own body and heart. So with this talk on equanimity emerging, I became extra curious, you know, how much

Papunya, how much am I being carried into reactivity? And it was a good show. I mean, whenever there's fear, unpleasantness, there's a strong tendency towards Papanga, towards reactivity, thoughts of the future, you know, what it might be. be like if I'm not in all cylinders, feelings of unpleasantness, am I getting worse? And then, of course, on the emotional side, the news my body tightening, my mind grim, how bad will the future be? Most revealing about this tendency towards Papantra was noticing how many moments of this reflex

of wanting life different. Right now it's not okay. something different. And I invite you to check it out because it can be eye-opening and reveal and to just notice, the way I do it is I just suddenly will stop in the middle of something and say, oh, you know, my wanting something different. Just notice if you're wanting less unpleasantness, if you're wanting more of something, now's not okay. for many, it's rare to have long stretches where we're not caught inside that kind of trance of something's wrong or something needs to be different. Again, if you see it, you see the reactivity,

you're not caught, you're on the path back. It's eagerly revealing that when you notice reactivity, how that noticing itself starts to bring real freedom. So for me, in practicing over these last weeks, just to get a little more hands-on, here I am watching experience, noticing what's predominant, and the practice was primarily kind of naming what was there, let's say aching, queasy, tired, and just saying it's like this right now, letting it be there, and then noticing not liking this, oh, okay, this too. Unpleasant. This too. And I found that when I noticed the quality of unpleasantness and the fact of not liking, that opened up a lot more freedom. So it wasn't just naming,

oh, aching, queasy tired. It was naming, oh, unpleasant. And then, oh, not liking this. Because those are the more subtle layers of experience that when we bring into awareness, free us up. So that each moment of simple mindfulness of the reactivity meant more space, less tossed by the waves, more ocean, a heart that was ready for anything. My friend, a poet Dana Falls, writes this. Sometimes my meditation cushion is more wrestling, Matt, than Oasis. It's embarrassing how often I release the same distracted thoughts again and again. I bring myself back to the moment as it is. Not good, not bad, not even neutral.

Just life unfolding with me in it. Just here and now reality. Just this. Just this. Just this. the space of equanimity arises in the moments that we really see what's happening and can say, oh, just this, or else this too are, okay, it's like this. I invite you to try those phrases because each one of them, just they give you more space. They create more awake space, more quantumous

attention. Share a personal story because a lot of times the equanimity flies out the door in our relationships with each other. And this is way back, some decades back, I was on a retreat and hadn't talked to my son for quite a number of days. He was at college. So I gave him a call probably at five, PM on New Year's Eve. And he was entirely preoccupied. He barely had the time of day. My retroactive learning has never ever call him approaching party time, or at least back then, that's what it was. But I was so angry because I wasn't looking for a long conversation. I just wanted to touch base, let him know a few things about visiting and so on. I was so angry. I felt like slamming the phone down, but instead just a tad of equanimity, I said, I'll let you go with a very tight voice.

I hung up and I was pissed. You know, he was so self-centered and insensitive. And anyway, I paused and just began that kind of equanimity practice to bring myself back of just seeing the reactions. just seeing okay anger and feeling the unpleasantness in my body and saying it's like this dropping the storyline and sensing oh hurt okay this too this too unpleasant it's like this storyline he doesn't love me okay drop it drop it this too and then feeling the sorrow you know it's there again, unpleasant, sad, this too, this too. And then feeling that sense of the kind of sorrow that is seeking connection and it didn't

feel as unpleasant anymore. So a little bit more pleasant. This too, this too. Space was opening up. Just staying with it because really the equanimity is a learn-to-stay process. with it, noticing what was happening, the unpleasantness, not liking it, but just noticing, noticing, noticing this too, this too. More space opened up and allowed for some tenderness where I could feel compassion to myself,

you know, for being caught in that feeling of not being loved and even more presence opened up. So it's becoming more of the ocean that could be with the waves. that vantage point. It was, I could see much more clearly. Equanimity lets us see more clearly the truth. I could see his humanness, how excited he was, he was grasping at the fun that was around the corner. His vitality and his goodness and his alive heart. And I could see the, you know, the way suffering happens, how my expectations were interfering with seeing him and how my outward blame interfered with me, just being with my own hurts.

It's so clear with him, all relationships, suffering that comes from wanting things a certain way, from a heart that's not ready for anything. So the pathway to equanimity, when we're feeling caught, is seeing the aversion or the craving with a gentle presence. Bringing it into awareness, that's all we need to do. We don't have to try to get rid of anything. just bringing it into awareness opens us it helps us find a more steady heart a wiser heart whether it's in relationships personally or with the world now i want to emphasize here that a key part of equanimity training is the shift from thoughts to feelings recognizing the story all the predictions we have and the blaming and the self-narrative because that fuels the pompon

Jell, Boltey Taylor, neurophysicist, she would describe how emotions come and go and they take about 1.5 minutes. So why do we get so caught up in our anxiety or fear or shame? What allows for that kind of hijacking is that we have to keep filling it with thoughts. So if we can bring mindfulness to thinking and say, okay, having, you know, thoughts, judging thoughts, blaming thoughts, worry thoughts, and come back to the living feelings in our body, it immediately gives us more space, more presence. That's the little mouse stepping off the wheel to get out of the thoughts, come into the body. I'm focusing on this partly because in relating to world events, I'm very aware of how,

for instance, with the U.S. elections and all the ripples of reactivity, so many are holding on to narratives about, okay, what is happening? What is going to happen? And of course, we need to seek understanding. But that's different than running now. narratives, holding tight to narratives that are inevitably fear-based about good and bad and enemy and other. So for me, part of stepping off the wheel has really been helpful to realize, I don't know. You know, I don't know. And this is the time for holding on to all tightly held

beliefs about what's happening. And instead, be willing to be willing to. to be uncertain and curious and just stay connected with the actual feelings that are coming with some presence. And it's helped me to hold a larger space, that heart that is ready, that curiosity, that Karen, it hasn't in one one bit made me less inclined to be engaged and to try to be part of the healing, but just less caught in the reactivity. Letting go of stories, opening to uncertainty. It creates one poet put it, a clearing in the dense forest of our lives. There's this dense forest of incessant narratives.

And if we want to come to a space of equanimity, we need to create a clearing. If we want to experience a heart that's ready for anything, we need to open beyond that kind of swirl of beliefs and thoughts. I'll share a story that touched me. I shared it many years ago. I think it's in my book, True Refuge. One woman had come to me for Buddhist teachings on how to be present with her partner who was dying. He only had a few days, week, two weeks to live, and he had asked her, not the minister or priest, to be the one to support and guide him. And she was terrified. She wouldn't know what to do.

You know, she wanted to think through the different scenarios and read about religious practices for the dying. And I encouraged her instead to practice presence, to not know, but instead just trust her inner wisdom to come through. And we explored how when she got caught in anxiety and thoughts, she might pause and just notice that was what was happening. Notice when it was unpleasant. Notice she wanted things different. She wanted certainty. Just notice it.

Notice the dense forest. And then simply reconnect with her breathing and the aliveness in her own body and heart. So she would just ask herself, okay, what's happening now? And in some way, whether it was the fear or the grief, the distress, just this, just this, this too. Refuge in equanimity and a heart that was ready or anything. Several weeks after her partner died, she called me. She said, Tara, when I allowed myself to pause and come home to presence, I did know how to be with him. And she went on to describe it over and over. She'd let go of the ideas of what was supposed to happen and just feel.

breath and feel the intimacy of the present moment. And from that embodied and tender awareness, she intuitively sensed how to offer those whispered words of encouragement and the caring touch and the soft singing, her loving presence. Most moving was the depth of connection she experienced. She said, as I least any thoughts about the future or what I should do, I open to the fullness of his spirit. And there is no longer a sense of him and me. Rather, we were a field of loving, total openness, warmth, light. He's gone, but that living field of loving is always with me. Equanimity is a sacred inner refuge. It's a space of homecoming. When we have a heart that's ready for anything. The heart is as wide as the world. It frees us to live from our deepest wisdom, from creativity,

from love. St. Teresa Valvila writes, there is a secret place, a radiant sanctuary. This magnificent refuge is inside you. Be brave and walk through the country of your own wild heart. Be gentle and know you know nothing. Be still. Listen. Keep walking. No one else controls access to this perfect place. Give yourself your own unconditional permission to go there. Waste no time. Enter the center of your soul. I love that. Equanimity isn't dry. It's this fertile, awake space of presence that gives rise to true wisdom and love. It's the center of the soul. It's truly a divine abode. So we'll close with a simple practice. This won't be long. Maybe first I'll give you a preview of coming attractions. Today we were looking at how

mindful awareness can bring us that space of equanimity, can free us from the limit. hijacked. I'm going to do a part two next week because there's so much about this, so many dimensions. And we'll look at contemplations that directly awaken and nourish equanimity and the societal impact of cultivating equanimity and the gifts that it does bring to us in our lives. Okay. So let's practice just for a few moments together. You might take some time to either close your eyes or let your gaze be downcast and feel a sense of settling, becoming still. Take a few nice full breaths and now scanning your life and just sense one of those swaths where you maybe regularly get caught in a limbic hijack or you get caught in

aversion or grasping, something that repeats itself. not traumatic, not huge charge, but something maybe in relationship or in your work life where you get hooked in that paponcha, or you're not liking, you're aversive, or you're grasping, you're chasing after something, but choosing something where you know you leave presence, you get reactive. And when you've chosen, sense what's most triggering you. What is it that somebody's saying, or doing, are that you're seeing or doing what's going on around you. And as you sense the trigger, move closer into it so you can actually feel what it's like when it happens.

And name whatever's predominant, whatever in your experience comes up, whether it's anger, whether it's craving, fear, irritation, anxiety. embarrassment, whatever it is. Just name it. And then in some way add whatever words help you to let it be there. It's like this right now. This too. And then just notice what else is here. Whatever else is coming up. Maybe it's self-judgment. Maybe it's a sense of unpleasantness. This is unpleasant. Name that too. This too. Maybe you don't like the situation. Notice if there's a liking or not liking of what's going on. Bring that into awareness.

This too. Just keep listening. Maybe there's a story that keeps popping up. Let yourself know that you don't have to believe it. Create a clearing in the dense forest. When you come back to the feelings underneath it with the gentle presence, this too. This belongs. It's a wave in the ocean.

Just let there be a stillness, a listening that's attending to what's going on inside you. Keep listening. You might notice that there's waves there, different feelings or thoughts, and there's more oceanness. The awareness that's holding, listening, being, sense this as your refuge, that this awareness comes with a heart that's ready for anything. Just imagine that, that your heart's ready for anything. There's space. You might still feel the unpleasantness, but there's room.

When you are more, give yourself permission to open and rest in a larger space, the space that's listening, that tender openness, this space that you can return to again and again, and know that it's intrinsic to who you are. There's a secret place, a radiant sanctuary. This magnificent refuge is inside you. Be brave and walk through the country of your own wild heart. Be gentle and know that you know nothing.

Be still. Listen. Keep walking. No one else can. controls access to this perfect place. Give yourself your own unconditional permission to go there. Waste no time. Enter the center of your soul. Okay, my friends, thank you so much for your presence and heart, and I look forward to being with you again next week.