Discussion topic for “Waking Up” Group Meditation & Discussion - Elysian Park 11.08.2025

What is Equanimity?

Joseph Goldstein

...And from one perspective, we can say that the entire spiritual path rests on the cultivation of this one particular mind state. And that is the mental factor of equanimity. So equanimity is the English translation of the poly word “Upe Ka” and it refers to what in the Buddhist psychology is called one of the universal beautiful factors of mind. Which means that this factor is present in every wholesome state of mind.

One interesting sideline: verses the “unwholesome” mind states, they call the skillful ones (wholesome ones} “beautiful”..... There is something very engaging about that, when we think about what it is we are cultivating, we’re cultivating these beautiful states of mind. An equanimity is one of the universal beautiful states of mind. So it joins some other qualities, such as faith and confidence and mindfulness, self-respect, non-greed, non-hatred, all of these other beautiful universals. So equanimity (Upe ka) refers to a certain balance in the mind, it’s called neutrality of mind. Interesting translation: “There in the middleness” So this is the quality of mind thats there in the middleness between extremes so this quality of even-ness in the middleness, when it’s very highly developed, when it’s highly cultivated, brings about an unshakable quality of mind. Some weeks ago I mentioned Joseph Campbell’s account of the Bodhisatva sitting under the bodhi tree assailed by all the forces...., “and the mind of the great being was not moved.” So that’s the quality of unshakable equanimity, there’s tremendous strength in that. But in understanding and exploring for ourselves the experience of equanimity, we need to take a little bit of care, because when we speak of it in English, as a neutrality of mind, just the word in English: Neutrality might suggest a kind of indifference, or pulling away or apathy. And neutrality might suggest being disconnected from what’s happening, but this indifference, or disconnection or apathy, are really the near enemies of equanimity. Which means that there are states that can look like it, may have the appearance of equanimity, but are actually unwholesome, unskillful imitations. So we don’t want to confuse the neutrality of equanimity with this disconnection. The Buddha described the mind filled with equanimity in this way: He described it as Abundant, Exalted, Immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill-will. So you get a sense of the magnitude and why it’s called a beautiful state of mind. You begin to see that this quality of equanimity is not indifference at all, but rather it is a spacious impartiality. And impartial might be a better way to describe it.... It would be very difficult to overestimate the importance of equanimity, both in our practice and our lives. So it’s worth not only exploring it in this talk and conceptually but really begin to investigate it in your own experience, so you have a first hand tasting of what equanimity is like in the mind. So the first way we can look at it and experience it - this cool, restful, balanced quality of the mind - equanimity - is in the peace and balance it brings to our everyday lives. Just to how we are living in the world. Each one of us is touched but what Buddha called the 8 great visisitudes of life - The 8 great changes of life... The endlessly changing conditions of gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, and pleasure and pain. So when we have equanimity in the mind, we ride these inevitable changes with ease, with balance, with confidence. Without it, without equanimity, as we go through praise and blame, and pain and loss, and pleasure and pain - when we go through these inevitable changes without equanimity, it’s like we’re crashing into the changing circumstances of our lives. We need equanimity in order to have equilibrium in the face of these changes, which happen to all of us.

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Friendship

by David Whyte

Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us to see ourselves through anothers eyes but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses, as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities, more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion that we do not need them. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion that we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued mutual forgiveness.

Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die. Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die.

In the course of the years, a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves. To remain friends, we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique. but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves. Friendship is the great hidden transmuter of all relationships. It can transform a troubled marriage, make honorable a professional rivalry, make sense of heartbreak and unrequited love, become the newly discovered ground for a mature parent-child relationship. The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life. A diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble, of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most ordinary existence. Friendship transcends disappearance, and enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent, internal conversational way, even after one half of the bond has passed on. But no matter, but no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long, close relationship with the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self, nor of the other. The ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness. The privilege of having been seen by someone, and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another. To have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.