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

Search Sangha Live

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.

Tags: compassion equanimity suffering wisdom

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    As wide as life and as open as space: practicing inclusivity.

    Recorded : March 22, 2015

    As we get familiar with the practice of meditation and the language of Dharma teachings, we can find ourselves getting comfortable, even complacent. Yet our practice in many ways is designed to make us uncomfortable! Designed to keep us open to ambiguity and uncertainty, to invite us to question and explore rather than to settle…

    Read More

  • Miles Kessler

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of June 5, 2023

    This week’s topic is “Cultivating The 5 Spiritual Powers In Your Life”. The “5 Spiritual Powers” are mental faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, & wisdom. In this week of daily meditation, each day you will experience one of the 5 spiritual powers, and you will learn the best practices for awakening, developing, and cultivating these mental powers in your practice, and in your life.

    Read More

  • Bart van Melik

    What Feeds your Craving?

    Recorded : May 19, 2024

    The Buddha discovered that craving is the cause by which stress comes into play. Letting go of this constant pursuing of our desires is possible. Befriending this human and natural craving needs the power of kind awareness and an ongoing reflection: What feeds my craving? And: What feeds letting go?

    Read More

  • Mark Coleman Profile Photo

    Discovering the Joy of Sensory Awareness: Mindfulness in Nature

    Recorded : February 12, 2023

    When we turn our attention to the sensory, natural world around us, mindfulness practice can become easeful and expansive. Nature allures awareness through her beauty, and range of dynamic, enchanting experience. In this session we will practice cultivating attention to our sense experience, and discovering joy, peace and wonder in this very moment. Tune in from any peaceful environment outdoors with an internet connection, or indoors, ideally with a view of the outdoors.

    Read More

  • Chris Germer

    The Power of Self-Compassion

    Recorded : June 11, 2023

    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

  •

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Milla Gregor – Week of July 22, 2024

    This week’s theme is “Comfort and Discomfort”. Comfort and discomfort can show up in practice, as well as in life. In what ways are they interwoven? What assumptions do we make about them that might hold us back from fully engaging? We’ll explore these ideas through meditation and contemplation, to see what can be learned – and liberated – in support of living and practising more freely and fully.

    Read More