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

  • Shaila Catherine

    Becoming Content with Emptiness and Voidness

    Shaila Catherine asks “Will nothing be enough?” as she explores how identification with our experience can create discontent with the basic fact that matter and mind is empty of self. Mindfulness will not demolish ego; instead, we mindfully recognize…

    Read More

  • Pamela Weiss

    What Does it Mean to be Free?

    Awakening, freedom, liberation … these are the premise and promise of the Buddhist Path. This session will explore the theme of awakening and liberation, and reflect on how practice can support us to find freedom right where we are.

    Read More

  • Shaila Catherine

    The Roots of Discouragement

    Progress in meditation may be slower than we anticipate. Discouragement develops when the comparing mind holds unrealistic expectations, demands perfection, and craves for measurable progress, predictable results, or signposts of success. This talk explores the obstacle of discouragement and its roots in conceit and the comparing mind. To prevent discouragement, we develop skillful ways to…

    Read More

  • Miles Kessler

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of July 29, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Cutting Through To Ultimate Reality”. The word “Dhamma” means ultimate reality, the absolute, or universal principles. This refers to the 3 universal characteristics of conditioned phenomena, and to Nibbana, the unconditioned. In this week of practice we will explore how insight into the Dhamma arises in meditation, and get practical instructions to cultivate the conditions for “Cutting Through To Ultimate Reality”.

    Read More

  • Nathan Glyde

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Nathan Glyde – Week of February 20, 2023

    This week’s topic is Subtilising Experience. The Dharma is a path to awakening. Our experience becomes more liberated as we awaken. Similarly, we can notice that our life progresses from the gross to the more subtle in awakening. A path of awakening freedom, then, is a path of subtilising: from perceptions of self and things in the world to space-time and even awareness, all phenomena transition from rigid and gross to fluid and refined, all the way to barely here at all.

    Read More

  • Jill Satterfield

    Imagination: An Integral Aspect of Liberating the Heart

    Our heart/mind is naturally creative; it foresees, remembers, dreams, and perceives. The products of our imagination shape our intentions, expanding the realm of possibilities beyond what we’ve learned, seen, or experienced thus far. We can give ourselves permission to imagine and co-create our lives. And once this is cultivated and the doors of perception are…

    Read More

  • Chris Germer

    The Power of Self-Compassion

    Most people are more compassionate toward others than themselves when things go wrong. However, burgeoning research shows that self-compassion is good for everybody. Fortunately, it can be learned.  How can we seamlessly bring self-compassion into meditation practice and daily life?  What are two secrets about self-compassion practice that make all the difference?

    Read More