“Reflect for a moment on the benefit of a mind that has balance and equanimity and feel in yourself what a gift it would be to bring a peaceful heart to your own life and to the world around you…”
Jack Kornfield
I was listening to Jack Kornfield the other day mindful of the long lapse in my meditation practice despite best intentions. This particular meditation focused on equanimity and as I listened I was reminded how elusive equanimity can be even with constant attention to its cultivation. I was also reminded how much the world needs equanimity and the peace that can accompany it.
Equanimity is challenging for me. Many definitions refer to a calmness of mind, a state of balance in the midst of all that changes… through good times and bad. Achieving that balance is a life long pursuit and I know I’ll never quite get it right. My teacher at the Center for Mindfulness used to say that sometimes achieving equanimity requires action. At other times it is achieved by non doing. Accepting what is is not to be confused with resignation, but rather learning how to live with what is in the present moment without losing our balance. Embracing the positives as well as the negatives and the things we cannot change and doing so with compassion and kindness.
When I sit at our Wider Missions meetings and White Privilege study group, I think about all the ways we are trying to make meaningful change. Some things we can change. Other things we can’t. In our desire for a more perfect and just world, in a world where two steps forward seems like three steps back it can be difficult to maintain equanimity from our little corner of the universe. It seems like we have been called to do more, to be more and to overcome more. It’s precisely at times like this that we need to make space for equanimity to enable us to stay the course. We need to cultivate this balance to sustain the seemingly unsustainable… not just for the short term but for a lifetime.
In Matthew 6:26-34, Jesus calls upon us to trust in God. Is he not also teaching us the value of equanimity by encouraging us to heed the birds of the air or the lilies of the field? To be of steady mind and heart and not perseverating on worries or material things or particular outcomes we may want. Not worrying about tomorrow but letting tomorrow take care of itself. When our minds are still and balanced are we not more open to all possibilities and the Divine?
In times of struggle, as in all seasons of life, may we make space for equanimity and find abiding peace.