Tara Brach - Equanimity: The Gifts of Non-Reactive Mindful Presence

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Equanimity: The Gifts of Non-Reactive Mindful Presence - If we want to bring our intelligence, creativity and love into our relationships and world, we need to be able to access an inner refuge of presence. This talk explores how, when we're reacting from anger, clinging or fear, to pause, reconnect to the immediate experience of "just this" and remember the love and awareness that has room for the changing waves of life. 

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome. Tonight's talk is one that I chose from the archives. It's on equanimity, and especially with our globe and such crisis, thinking of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and also more broadly, the whole populations threatened by famine, violence, it just seems crucial that we have a way of finding some balance, some inner clarity and presence and perspective in the midst, so really that we can respond to our world from care. So my hope is that you'll find these teachings and practices on equanimity of value on your path, in your

immediate and personal life and then your life as part of a very challenged and struggling world. Thank you. Namaste and welcome. It's very nice to be with you and I share to begin with a cartoon that I got recently that I found really easy to relate to and it was of two mice and each of the mice is on its own spinning wheel and one is frantically moving and the other one is just sitting at the bottom of the wheel looking very relaxed and at peace and of course the caption is from that one I had an epiphany so what was the epiphany and to me the epiphany is like this amazingly valuable reminder that we forget regularly that we have in any moment the capacity to pause to become still to get off

that wheel of obsessive thinking and of racing through the day and of running away from something unpleasant or uncomfortable, that in any moment, any moment, we can stop. We can stop, we can breathe, we can let go a little, I'm trying to do it right now, it's just any intentional moment of that gift letting go, letting go. And then it's possible to enter the next moment with more presence and balance and clarity and heart. In Buddhist psychology, there are what are called the four divine abodes, and each one is an expression of what it means to be at home in the sacred. And the divine abodes are loving kindness, compassion, joy,

and the fourth, which makes all the other ones, the previous ones possible, is equanimity. So equanimity is this inner balance, this ease or spaciousness of presence. It's a non-reactive awareness. And when we're able to come and to rest and be in that spaciousness, that inner presence, then all the other qualities of life that we so cherish like compassion, like love, arise naturally. We can actually move into the next moment when we were coming from equanimity with our full intelligence, our full heart.

I often reflect on Victor Frankel's famous quote because it's really an equanimity quote. And he says that in between the stimulus and the response, there's a space. and in that space is your power and your freedom. So it's really, really meaningful on our path to be able to do what that mouse did and just stop racing, just stop the spinning wheel, come to rest, especially in current times as we consider we're in times of multiple pandemics

and with so much uncertainty and threat and so many of us feeling reactive, distressed, being able to step off that spinning wheel and access that space of equanimity, that refuge of inner ease is a tremendous gift. It affects all who we touch. So this is what we'll be exploring together this evening. how we can move from reactivity to that space of non-judging balanced presence. And as we explore this, you might be considering what are the waves that you're encountering in your life, whether it's individually or your sense of our world, that really stir you up.

the waves that get you spinning when you most really need to be able to touch in again to that inner refuge. So this will be our inquiry, you know, shifting from reactivity to that presence that allows us to then respond from the best of who we are, from our awake hearts. Maybe begin by sharing a story NPR a few years ago. where I heard it, where this little girl, Melissa, is at home and she's drawing and she's all excited because she has just discovered that if you combine yellow and blue, why it makes green? And so she shows her mom and her mom says, oh, that's beautiful. And you can show your dad when he comes home.

So that evening, her father, who's a very busy Wall Street finance person broker, comes home and he's very agitated and he walks in the door talking on his cell phone and she's, little Melissa's following him around the house, you know, trying to get his attention, but he's on the cell phone and he goes into his office and he's on the cell phone and turns on the computer and she's tugging at his pants trying to get him to look, look, look at what she's done. And he gets irritated and he says, Melissa, what are you doing down there? And she said, Daddy, I live down here. We lose track of our shared reality.

We lose track of each other. We lose track of what really matters when we're on that spinning wheel. We miss out. There's that saying that life is what's happening when we're on our way somewhere else, wanting something different, being preoccupied. So it's a true loss to override our living moments because we can't really listen to our own hearts to others. There's no real presence with whatever hurts and fears are there.

And there's also no intimacy, no sense of aliveness and wonder. We're just in a trance. So this is what happens when we're run by our survival brain, by our Olympic system, that we're actually in reaction to wants and fears rather than presence and our attentions hijacked. And we get very focused and narrowed and contracted. And as many know, we're in a society that increasingly fuels this kind of emotional limbic hijack, where we can't sustain a deeper presence. and a primary medium is the Internet.

And I've just come to believe that if we want to keep waking up our hearts, if we really want to wake up our wisdom, if we want societal healing, we need to honestly examine our relationship with the Internet. I was very impacted about a week and a half ago. I think I shared with some of you this, I saw a Netflix called The Social Dilemma. And in it, you hear from different tech industry insiders, people who had been very, very high up in well-known tech companies, who have become very, very alarmed at the direction that the Internet's taking us. It wasn't originally intended that the Internet go in this way, but this is what's happened.

And so you hear from different individuals the ones that know the most about how the Internet is designed and what it does, talking about how they have worked with their own addictions to the Internet and how they severely limit their children's use of social media and so on. And what they basically convey is what many of us know. The Internet's run by multi-billion-dollar tech companies that are on the profit motive, which is, they have one commodity that they're trying to get, which is your attention. That's it. That's what translates into money. And the internet and particularly news, I think, is designed to try to grab and control your attention based on your wants and your fears. This is the message that these tech companies collect massive amounts of data about each of us, about what we like and what we don't, like our purchases, our opinions and views, then they create these algorithms and use them

to try to control, grab our attention, and influence our behaviors. And it's way more subtle, insidious, and pervasive than most of us imagine. I mean, it happens. You cannot be online and hold your attention steady because of notifications and ads and all the ways that the net is designed to addict you, giving you your dopamine fix, you know, of social media and so on. I mean, think about how difficult it is to control that impulse to check email and text. You know, it's really difficult. We're addicted. So just to say, we know the value of the internet, that we're conserved to connect and educate and, and

enable collaboration. And of course, we know the necessity of news. Yet, increasingly, our news feeds and the social media groups we interact on are so separate from each other, from others, that there's no shared truth about what's happening. And it's becoming more and more separate. And it's really scary because living in separate realities in the Netflix, they They likened it to different groups living in their own Truman shows, you know. Because here's the thing. No matter how right you might feel in your view about things right now, the more time you're online and it's compulsive that you're really, you know, really hooked, hooked on the news

and so on, the more narrow the mind gets and the more charged emotions get. And the more it feeds this trance of bad others and it feeds biases. And it contributes to a divided society. The addiction to the Internet contributes to this trance we're in of them out there, a bad other out there. And it's the same trance that divides us from ourselves. It really erodes our capacity for equanimity and presence. So, I took a little time on this because I'm working on it myself.

I've been increasingly taking blocks of time each day as well as days from the week where I'm not online. And there's a huge difference when I take time off in terms of the amount of moments that there's actually a sense of connection with my senses and with my heart. And I'll share with you that the day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, I decided to go on a kind of news blackout and I did it for about a week. You know, I knew that the news would, I knew pretty much what was happening and what was going to happen, but it felt so important not to fuel my limbic system and just to take a rest

from it. And I remember one friend was at the Supreme Court the other day and never seen so many bouquets and so much heart-carrying. And just taking that break, let me keep tapping into the caring and what mattered most really individually and as a society. And so that I could continue to act because I'm pretty active in terms of, you know, get out the vote and the different areas and causes that I'm passionate about. but to really do it from more of a place of presence than agitation.

So in this exploration of how we come home to equanimity and presence, this is one key piece in terms of watching our external life and being honest about our relationship with media, with internet. Now, how about the inner? What do we do inwardly? How do we practice inwardly when we're reactive? How do we come back then? Especially in the moments when we're, you know, it could be how do we come back when we're feeling

the big threats for our personal life in our world, but also in a daily way when we're feeling those tugs of anxiety and wanting life to be different, wanting somebody's other's behavior to be different, wanting to be different ourselves. And the key is this. That it's the mindfulness skill of learning to come. back to just this. When we're on that spinning wheel, it's to be able to say, okay, what exactly is happening right now? Can I connect exactly with the life of this moment? Let me share a story with you of one woman who, this happened to her during a retreat, who just started spinning

and how she came back. And we teach a lot in our retreats about staying awake and in our bodies and one of the meditations for that is walking meditation, which is a, it's a beautiful meditation where you don't walk to get somewhere. It's just really walking about 15 paces and then you stop, pause, turn around and walk back 15 paces. But what you find in not trying to get somewhere, you're not on the wheel racing, is that you actually arrive in the steps. It's possible to step on this earth with appreciation and presence. So, this woman, everybody was doing walking meditation, but she didn't like it. She was having difficulty with it.

So she was assigned by one teacher, since she was having so much trouble with it, to actually stop sitting altogether and do a whole day of walking meditation. So they negotiated because she really didn't like that assignment. Everything, of course, is completely voluntary and optional, but it was just an idea. They agreed on a half day of walking meditation. So I want to read you a note that she wrote after that half day of walking meditation. Long walking meditation all morning. Assignment completed. Thank you. Now I can meditate while moving. I thought I might discover why I've been so resistant to it, but no, circumstances taught me

something else instead. I chose to walk in the annex walking room because it's small, beautiful, and usually quiet. Today, however, it was noisy. as hell. There was some guy in there walking as the little engine that could wearing noisy boots. Well, I thought surely he'll be gone when the walking period ends. No such luck. This madman pounded his way through an hour and a half, except when he paused to drink or remove a noisy layer of clothing. I tried meta, loving kindness practice. Surely he must have a lot of pain to be so driven. Then I realized I wanted to kill the SOB. I stood there noting, hate, hate, hate. Later I stood in the middle of the room and wept, tears, tears. And then I got to the

point that I realized that whatever problem he had was his, not mine, and after that I got quiet, and he was just sound. And so I walked and breathed, and he paced and pounded, and pretty soon it was all the same to me, his noise, my breath, the movement of my body. After an hour and a half, he left and it was incredibly quiet, which was different, but not as much better as I expected, mostly just different. Thank you. So that was the note. Our attention gets hijacked and fixated when we want life different. And it's homecoming to be able to say it was, you know, It was different, not so much better as I expected. That's homecoming. Just presence with what is, our thoughts, anger, hate, hate, tears, tears. This is the pathway back to just feel what's here.

Just stay right here. My friend and poet Dana Falls puts it this way. She says, sometimes my meditation cushion is more wrestling mat 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. So I want to offer to to this very powerful little tool. It's like a mantra that you can just come back and keep on anchoring your attention. Just this. Just this. Just this sorrow, just this fear, just this excitement, just this pounding heart, just this quietness, just this ease, whatever it is, that mantra

just this. Are, in a similar vein, you can say, this too, and that just includes it. This too and this too. Or I love the word yes. Are saying this belongs. But the point is to come back and stay right with the life that's here. Now, when I teach about equanimity in this non-judging presence that's right here with this moment. There's one very big misunderstanding, which is that, well, equanimity means that we don't address what's actually going on in our life or that we don't engage or we're kind of like the passive bystander, a distant observer of all the different pains and the pleasures, just letting it happen. And of course, when I was thinking about that, it reminded me of a story I heard a while ago about a priest who was presenting children's sermon

right before the whole congregation. So the children were involved. And he asked the children if they knew what the resurrection was. And a little boy raised his hand and said, well, if you have a resurrection that lasts more than four hours, you're supposed to call the doctor. And I love that, you know, the passive bystander, just letting life happen. You know, call. all the doctor. So equanimity doesn't mean that we passively take life what life serves up for better or for worse, like a leaf in the wind. I'll never forget my mom's response to equanimity teachings. She, during the last decade of her life, would come to Buddhist retreats and also to my weekly class. Now, my mother was a progressive, an activist right through her life. So we came to this

theme of equanimity, of a non-judging presence, and she totally rebelled. I remember the first time that she heard me talk on it, we were driving back from class together because she was living with me at that point. And she was quiet for a while, so I thought, ah, she's kind of resting in the presence that we were exploring during class. But no such thing. She launched in, she said, well, I'm there with Buddhism, except for this equanimity thing. She says, it makes everything so vanilla. It strips us of our personality and our caring and our responsibility to act. What about climate change? What about racism? And she kept going. She said, the Buddha got it wrong on this one. So I'll never forget it because it's so clear that

when we're talking about equanimity, about this refuge of non-judging presence, it does not mean disengaging. It's really about sourcing ourselves in that balanced presence so that our actions can arise from a wisdom that's free from grasping an aversion, from true wisdom. And I think so often about Gandhi who each week he took, I think it was Monday off each week, no matter what was going on, to meditate so he could come into that inner stillness and presence, or as he put it, so my actions arise from the wisdom of heart. I think of the capacity for equanimity with the Dalai Lama's reference to the Chinese. He would call the Chinese, my friend, the enemy. So it allows us to remember a larger truth and be a

force for healing. We can't do it unless we pause. Now there's another misunderstanding I want to mention and that sometimes equanimity or a non-judging presence can seem like we're saying so then you don't feel any fear or wanting anymore and that's not the case either. We can be a quantumist. We can find that balance while we're feeling fear, while we're feeling anger. I'm thinking right now of just this last Saturday at the question-answer, at the Sotsong. One woman from Canada, her question was, she said, well, so many of us here in Canada are deeply frightened about what's going on in the United States and, of course, the world, but right now the United States really pained and she had tears and it was really upsetting.

And so we began to exchange and people in the chat were saying, us too, us from the United States too, that we're feeling fear. So we explored and under that fear that she was feeling and she felt it with all those that she was friends with was this deep care about how many are suffering right now and about the threat of devolving into even more violence and disease and the violation of our earth. And in our exchange, it wasn't about removing the fear. It was about including the fear, just this, and also what was under it, the care, just this, the care.

And then the reality of all these others who are feeling the same that are also caring, deeply, deeply concerned, just this and this. And what we find is that when we can name and include just this and this, what starts growing is an atmosphere presence that can include it, a presence that is tender and balanced and wise. So rather than reacting to the fear, we're the ocean that can include the waves of fear. And this is the gift of equanimity, of finding that refuge, is that it connects us with an inclusive open heart space. One meditation master described it this way, the heart that is ready for anything.

The heart that's ready for anything. That whatever arrives, if we know how to come into that space of equanimity and presence, were able to respond with our care, with our intelligence. Story to give you a sense of this that it touched me, I included this in True Refuge. That was my second book. A woman had come to me and asked me for the Buddhist teachings on how to be present for someone when they're dying and her partner only had a few days to live and had requested that she, not a minister or priest, be the woman.

one to support and guide him. And she was terrified that she'd fall short, that this was the most important request of her life and that she would fail him. And so 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 really trust her own wisdom. And we explored how when she got caught in the reactive spinning, anxious thoughts and so on, she could come back. and pause and try to relax her body a little and connect with just this, with her breath, her aliveness, with just what's there, just this, refuge in equanimity. So what I want to share with you is that several weeks after her partner died, she was in touch

with me. And she said, Tara, when I allowed myself to pause and come home to present, I did know how to be with him. And she went on to describe how she had to keep letting go of any ideas about what was supposed to happen, which is all through our life, what we have to do, and just come back to feeling her breath and the fear or the grief or whatever was in the present moment, just be intimate with that. And then she could, from this more embodied, tender awareness, intuit how to whisper words of encouragement, how to offer a caring touch, how to sing softly.

She experienced this real depth of connection that came out of that presence. She said, this is what she told me. She said, as I released any thoughts about the future or what I should do, I opened to the fullness of his spirit. And there was no longer a sense of him and me, but rather we were this field of loving, total openness, warmth, light. He's gone now, but that living field of loving is always with me. When we learn, and it's really a learn, learn that pathway to that inner refuge, it's really a pathway to our deepest wisdom, our deepest heart. I love that. the way St. Teresa Avila puts it, she says, there is a secret place, a radiant sanctuary.

This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Be bold, be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Slip away. close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home. So my friends, I've given some examples. It's a whole world to explore, but really there's a simplicity, this just noticing when we're in this reactive trance. If we're in that reactive trance because of our outside activities, internet news, to put it down, to pause, and then to inwardly pause. It's crucial because we so want to live from who we really are, from our love, from our wisdom, and this is what gives us access. Now, I've been sharing

with you stories that are on the kind of individual level. I want to share one final story, that illustrates the power of this presence. And it took place in the early weeks of the Iraq War. Armies and Marines were closing in on Baghdad. And one reporter was watching what was happening actually on TV. And he described what appeared to be a disaster in the making because a small unit of American soldiers was walking up a street in Najaf when hundreds of Iraqis poured out of buildings on either side. And they had their fists waving and throats taut, and they were pressing in on the Americans who glanced at one another in terror. And so this reporter was, you know, kind of got increasingly tense as he listened to the Iraqi shrieking, frantic with rage. And the cameraman

from the way the lens was lurching seemed as frightened as the soldiers. And so this reporter thought, this is it. You know, a shot's going to come from somewhere and then all hell's going to break loose. You know, Americans will open fire and the whole world's going to witness Malai massacre of the Iraq War. That's what he was stealing himself for. But at that moment, an American officer stepped through the crowd, holding his rifle high over his head with a barrel pointed to the ground. And against the backdrop of the seething crowd, it was a real striking gesture. Take a knee, the officer said, take a knee. And the soldiers looked at him as if you were crazy. But then one after another swaying in their bulky body armor and gear, they knelt before the boiling crowd

and pointed their guns at the ground. And the Iraqis fell silent and their anger subsided and the officer ordered his men to withdraw. We need leaders that know how to stop the war. We need leaders that know how to pause, how to come into presence, and how to guide us from that presence toward a more understanding, caring, compassionate world. And each of us needs to create the grounds for that kind of a world to emerge. There's huge, huge ripples that come when any of us. of us access, wise presence, and then from that live with respect and care towards each other. Huge ripples.

We have this inner refuge. It's part of who we are. It's an innate capacity, this wise heart space. And like all positive states, it can be cultivated. This is what neuroscience has taught us that the more we practice coming home, the more of that pathway is available to us. It becomes from a state to a trait. So we'll practice together. You practice together right now and then you can practice formally and informally through your day when the waves get strong, just taking even a 30-second pause and you'll be living

more from that non-reactive presence than if you don't pause. You will be cultivating. You will be cultivating that heart that is ready for anything. So wherever you are right now, let's just take a few minutes to close with a bit of a practice, a taste of it. You might close your eyes and then with your eyes closed, adjust your posture so that you're sitting in a way that allows you to be present. You might scan your life and sense where are the waves strong for you right now? What is triggering reactivity for you? And you might pick one situation that's been recurrent, might be in your personal life or more societally,

that brings up a sense of reactive fear, anger, strong emotions, obsessive thinking. Once you have this situation in mind, imagine yourself in it. See if you can transport yourself into it so that you're, if it's with another person, you're seeing how they're behaving, you're hearing their words, or if it's a public figure, you have the image and the words, or if it's news that you've heard, it's in your mind.

imagining, receiving, being triggered, but then pausing. Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. So pause. Create that space. Perhaps take a few full breaths and sense the possibility of simply noticing what is going on inside me right now. Maybe it's anger. Maybe it's fear.

Maybe it's powerlessness. Maybe it's grief, maybe under that there's caring. But simply just name it. Just name what you're aware of. Support yourself by saying just this. Interested, kind, allowing attention. Just this. Shoulders and knots.

Just this. Heart pounding. This too. Not judging. And if there's judgment, not judging the judgment. whatever comes up, including resistance, you can include that, just say resistance. Okay, this too. There's nothing that can't be included in this pause.

This too, this too. Breathing with what's happening. You're being with the waves, letting them move through you, and beginning to sense the space they're happening in, that there is a witness, a weightness, a weight of, faithful openness that's including. It's like you are the ocean that can feel the waves, they're part of you, but they're not the whole of you. There's space for them to arise, to fade. You might imagine and sense all of us who are practicing with you, this shared heart space, that it can include the changing waves, that we can include the experiences of all people, all

all beings right now that are struggling with fear, with hurt, with anger, all held in this heart space. And sense the possibility of that heart that's ready for anything. You might sense the particular situation that triggers you and from that present, sense what other possibilities are here for you to respond. And sensing that when you respond from your greatest heart, greatest, deepest wisdom, you're really responding from the truth of who you are. And that truth is always here. That beingness is always here. Again, St. Teresa, 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 that you know nothing. Be still.

No, 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. Now taking a few full breaths and as you're ready, opening your eyes, and sensing the possibility in the days and weeks to come of having more and more access to the presence that's always here in this heart space within and around you.

I want to thank you for your attention tonight. Many blessings. Thank you. For more talks and meditations, and to learn about my schedule or join my email list, please visit tarabrock.com.