Staying Calm in the Midst of Chaos

Today we’re going to talk about Equanimity. So what does this word mean? Essentially? Equanimity is the ability to maintain your calm or maintain your inner peace, regardless of what’s going on in the world around you. So whether the environment is noisy and chaotic or whether you are going through some frustrating experience, the ability to stay calm to maintain that inner peace to not react with frustration or anger, or hatred or just keeping that inner balance, this is equanimity.

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So take a moment to think of someone from your life or even a fictional character from a book you’ve read, or movie you’ve watched. Someone who is able to keep a level head or to maintain calm under pressure. Thinking of this person can be a great way to conjure up the feeling of equanimity. This interval can help inspire us to practice, cause this is what we’re going for. We want to cultivate this ability to stay calm regardless of how chaotic our environment gets.

 

Now, on a technical level - at least in terms of meditation. Equanimity means not reacting to anything with craving, just observing what’s going on. Such a practice is called Equanimity.

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One is just naturally calling up this quality. Calling up this nonreactive quality of just observing without reacting with craving our version. And the other way is using a short phrase, similar to how we studied our attention with the breath. We use that phrase rising and falling. 

 

We can use a different phrase to again, just help conjure up the feeling of equanimity And this phrase is right now, it’s like this, or this is how it is right now. And so what we’re doing with this phrase is actually just cultivating an acceptance of the present moment as it is.

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And if you can say this in your mind with a calm voice, then you can actually start to cultivate a little bit of that feeling of equanimity.

 

So, for example, if you are noticing a lot of distraction in your mind and you just pause and say "Right now, its like this." Or let’s say you’re having pain in the body and you can bring your attention to pain and say, "All right, now its like this." So what we’re doing is cultivating this ability to notice what’s going on without reacting with craving aversion.

 

So the guided practice today were going to continue with mindful breathing and what we’ve learned so far. And were just going to add in some of this Equanimity practice.

 

So when you’re ready go ahead and click on the next video.