equanimity

The lucky ones, the enlightened ones, live with a certain feeling of balance: balance on the inside, and, as always, that balance reflected in their feelings towards the outer world. And towards the outer, this feeling of balance manifests as an equanimity.

Equanimity comes naturally, as our prejudices, our biases, drop away. Ordinarily, the mind is exaggerating things, making pleasurable experiences feel even better than the reality. And unpleasant experiences are also exaggerated. And we begin to label things as good or bad; clinging on with attachment to those that have been deemed good; and feeling anger towards those things that we have deemed bad; rejecting them; pushing them away. This exaggerating mind and judgemental mind stops us from feeling equanimity. But as we become more balanced on the inside, these prejudices are seen as nothing but mind games, imposed on a beautiful world.

Letting go of these biases, these preferences, we come to a space where we have an equal feeling for all other people, all other beings; in fact, for every element of existence. From this space of equanimity, we can respond to everyone with the same feeling of acceptance, openness, connection, and ultimately, love.

The love of the buddhas is unconditional because of this equanimity, And any other love, any conditional love, is really an expression of our own preferences. Only when those preferences no longer carry weight; are no longer seen to be somehow capturing an attribute of the person or the object we feel the preference for, or against; when these preferences are seen as an arbitrary thing in our own mind, then of course they lose power over us. No longer are we thrown into anger when someone else happens to have different beliefs to our own. We come to the space of equanimity. It is a peaceful way to live in the world; not only in our relations to other people but internally a great peace can come upon us. It also allows the space for this universal love to flow.

So nurture this in yourselves; this equanimity; this blissful sea of peace and love. Float in it and be happy.