Equanimity

Live transcript, not proofed yet

The title of tonight's talk is equanimity. It follows on from the trilogy I was talking about: greed, hatred, ignorance, or grasping, aversion, and apathy. Basically, equanimity is the absence of grasping, aversion and apathy. That's what it is. People have the idea that you attain something or you gain something through doing practice. But nirvana itself means the absence grasping, aversion, and ignorance. When that's not their aggravating you, then that's a peaceful experience people have. 

It's the whole four-level truths as a medical metaphor. It's like if there's a sickness. Then there's the cause of the sickness which is grasping, aversion and ignorance. Then when you get rid the cause of the illness, you're healthy again. I think Joko actually uses the words in her book, its the enlightenment, its not the gaining of something, it's the absence of something. But this is what it is, the absence of.

Some people have the idea that equanimity is a state of mind. And then they're trying to hold on to the state of mind. So there's times when we have a peaceful state of mind and might be  a particular meditations we have or retreats we have, where we have a state of mind. And that's fine, but then your circumstances change and you come out of meditation. You come home and your adolescent daughter is angry at you, you know, whatever it might be. And then you've got to deal with a crisis so where's your piece of mind? Damn it up, I've created this piece of mind now i've gone on home and it's gone, you know, and we're angry about it. 

So clinging to states of mind is not what what it is and people neurobiologically think it's the creation of these endorphins which calm you. Well, yes, you do create those when the meditate and particularly on the retreat, you do. It lends  itself to a state of samadhi, right? But samadhi in itself is not equanimity, if you're holding on to it. 

Equanimity is that dissolving of the grasping, aversion and apathy dynamic in the mind.

Equanimity talk by Geoff Dawson, October 31, 2023, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney