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

How to Find Balance in Difficult Times

With Oren Jay Sofer recorded on June 2, 2019.

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

Equanimity is balance that comes from wisdom; it’s our heart and mind’s capacity to roll with the inevitable challenges and changes of life without taking it personally, without falling into despair or hopeless. Rather than a bland state of neutrality, or a cold state of indifference, equanimity gives us a wide space to feel the whole range of human experience, and the poise to act with wisdom and care rather than reactivity. Whether it’s personal loss and difficulty, challenges in relationship, or the immense pain our world is facing, equanimity is the indispensable quality that allows us to meet life with grace and balance, and at times to keep going in the face of extraordinary hardship.

In this session you’ll learn tools to:

Find balance with difficult emotions
Understand how we get reactive and what helps us to let go
Get perspective when challenged or overwhelmed

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

Discussion

Leave a Reply

Discover more from the Dharma Library

  • Daily Meditation Recordings, with Ulla Koenig – Week of July 19, 2021

    This week’s theme is: Identifying the Many Masks of the Inner Critic

    Often we think of the inner critic as the constant nagging inner discourse which dismisses our good qualities, questions our lovability, and our potential for goodness. Being a master/mistress of disguise, the inner critic takes on many forms; it wraps our decision making process in veils of doubt, pushes us into compulsive activity, traps us in paralysis, and distorts our views on others.

    Luckily, the Dharma path offers us tools to meet this painful heart-mind dynamic. This week we will practice summoning qualities like wisdom, kindness, equanimity, concentration, appreciation, compassion and inquiry, in order to meet our inner critic in a skilful way.

    Read More

  • Miles Kessler

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Miles Kessler – Week of 15 June, 2026

    This week’s theme is: The Seven Factors Of Awakening . In this week of daily meditations, you will explore the Buddha’s foundational teaching on the “Seven Factors of Awakening” (bojjhaṅga): mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity. Together we will examine how these qualities arise in meditation practice, are gradually cultivated, and are the very factors that support awakening. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how the path of practice unfolds, and you will gain practical tools for cultivating greater balance, clarity, and insight. “For one who is mindful, investigating phenomena, energy arises. For one who is energetic, joy arises…” – Samyutta Nikaya. Our Dharma Library thrives through collective generosity. Your donation helps sustain this offering for our entire community.

    Read More

  • Deborah Eden Tull - Senior Dharma Teacher

    Live wholeheartedly and leave not a trace

    During the meditation and dharma talk Eden explores this Zen teaching by Suzuki Roshi: “When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.” How wholeheartedly are you showing up to life? What most helps you to remember that THIS IS IT? What helps you to see…

    Read More

  • photo of Martin Aylward smiling

    Trust in the Goodness of your Practice

    Basic goodness is the fundamental ground of your own heart and mind and being. A buoyant heart allows us to face the ‘infinite ocean of suffering’ and stay open-hearted; It is the foundation for living the Bodhisattva vows, it is how we keep on waking up and showing up and growing up, for the benefit…

    Read More

  • Zohar Lavie

    Daily Meditation Recordings, with Zohar Lavie – Week of July 5, 2021

    This week’s theme is: The Power of Compassion.

    Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. – Dalai Lama

    During this week we will explore how compassion informs and supports meditation practice and the deepening of understanding and wisdom. We will practice and inquire into different aspects of this powerful attitude and intention and taste for ourselves the impact it has on ourselves and the world.

    Read More

  • Daily Meditation Recordings with Christopher Titmuss- Week of June 10, 2024

    This week’s topic is “Letting Go. An Act of the Will?”

    We pick up a hot coal in the morning from the wood burner.

    Ouch, we let go immediately. No thought. No desire. Instant letting go.

    The language of letting go has entered into the mind of the meditator.

    It is often not a solution but an ambitious state of mind.

    Letting go reveals an outcome of understanding.

    We can tell ourselves a 1000 times we should let go and it’s to no avail.

    The desire to let go shows we are not ready to let go.

    We will explore the preparation for letting go and wise responses employing at times letting go.

    Read More

  • A Relational Dhamma

    If humans are intrinsically relational creatures, how do we integrate this understanding with the Buddha’s teachings on suffering and its cessation? Relational suffering and craving? Dependent origination? In this session, we explore the power and necessity of a relational understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. We discuss and practice relational aspects of the path, including the…

    Read More