Use code SUMMERPRACTICE for a 25% discount on all On Demand Courses through August 31.

Equanimity: Finding Balance in Difficult Times

With James Baraz recorded on January 16, 2022.

Found our teachings useful? Help us continue our work and support your teachers with a donation. Here’s how.

In times like these with so much uncertainty, fear and suffering, how can we keep our center in a world that sometimes seems to be spinning out of control?

Equanimity (upekkha in Pali) in Buddhist teachings describes the quality of balance in any circumstances. It is one of the Four Divine Abodes, one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, one of the Ten Paramitas and a number of other Buddhist lists. When highly developed it is the precursor to the experience of awakening.

How can we cultivate equanimity in our meditation practice? Even more, how can we access it in our daily life?

Listen to the audio version below, or click here to download the mp3.

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • James Baraz

    Awakening Joy: Practice as a Path of Happiness

    Joy is both a Factor of Enlightenment and one of the four Divine Abodes. Today, as we are bombarded with news that heightens our fear and sadness about the world, more than ever it’s vital to understand the importance of joy as a central aspect of spiritual practice. We need to remember how to stay…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of July 17, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Deepening and Developing Unconditional Friendliness”. Metta, translated as unconditional friendliness, is a powerful and transformative attitude. When we relate to ourselves, others and experience with metta, reactivity and ill being dissolve and wisdom and wellbeing grow. During this week of practice we will deepen the practice and application of metta, as well as the understanding of how it impacts experience.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Jaya Rudgard – Week of 07 April, 2025

    We are delighted to have Jaya Rudgard leading our Daily Meditation sessions this week. May they bring nourishment to your practice.

    This week’s theme is: Dharma Here and Now: The Art of Being Present

    As meditators we aspire to being awake to life. We know that this life with its gifts, challenges and opportunities, only ever happens NOW, yet this NOW often eludes us. This week we’ll investigate what helps and hinders our fully inhabiting the moments of our day, and what possibilities might emerge when we do so.

    Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Kate Johnson

    From Freeze to Flow: Transforming Your Fear in the Midst of Pandemic

    Rarely has our inherent interdependence been more exposed than it is right now. As a society, we are depending on one another not only to wash our hands and keep our distance. We are depending on each other to take care of our minds and hearts, to transmit clarity and compassion rather than powerlessness and…

    Read More

  • Expanding our Understanding of Loving Kindness Practice

    Many of us have habitual ways of practicing loving kindness (metta), Some of us love loving kindness practice, and others find kindness practice difficult, or merely routine. Join Diana to explore a more expansive approach to loving kindness where we learn at least three different types of kindness practice. We’ll discover the roots of these…

    Read More

  • Willa Blythe Baker

    Refugia: Finding Sanctuary in Times of Crisis

    We live in challenging times. Biologists speak of micro-systems where species sequester during times of crisis. They are called refugia. In times of uncertainty and fear, we too need refugia, places of spiritual safety where we can put down roots, grow and thrive. In this Sunday teaching, Willa invites us to explore the concept of…

    Read More

  • Can We Know the End of the World?

    We find ourselves concerned with the state of the world yet we do not live in one world. Our inner world reveals significant differences from the outer world. The outer world offers a variety of impressions to people. It is not unusual to claim we live in different worlds. The one world view seems to…

    Read More

  • Jill Satterfield

    The Skilful Process of Transformation

    In this session, we’ll use the skilful means of mindfulness, mindful breathing and leading the nervous system into a parasympathetic state, to guide our mind towards organic spacious awareness. Within this relaxed spaciousness we’ll imagine the ways in which we wish to incline, head towards and become one with.

    Read More