You Are Equanimity

[Raptorsin7]

This is a useful insight i've been playing with in meditation the past few weeks and I wanted to share my thoughts.

I think for many of us, we are motivated by an underlying dissatisfaction with ourselves and our actions/thoughts/feelings arise from this constant sense of dissatisfaction with ourselves and our desire to fulfill ourselves with actions in the world.

But the key is to learn to be at peace and equanimous with whatever is present, RIGHT NOW. Whatever is present in your experience right now is really all that matters, so that's what you have to come to peace with. I think developing equanimity with ourselves is a very important skill to cultivate.

One trick I've found is to recognize in meditation that our inherent nature as aware beings is equanimous. Rather than TRYING to achieve equanimity with whatever sensations are present, just recognize your own presence (which requires 0 effort), and notice how this sense of presence is inherently undisturbed. As this presence you are equanimous. 

I think this is a great way to develop equanimity and i've had a lot of success with this mental shift. It's all about recognizing our own aware presence, and the noticing that inherent in ourselves is a sense of equanimity.

Beware that it may seem like you are not inherently equanimous at first, but you are probably used to clinging to and avoiding sensations of the body, so there will be a certain habit pattern to become aware of that may prevent this understanding from being seen clearly.

Let me know if you have thoughts, questions, or criticisms 

[Nahm]

Beautiful. Sounds like more of a breakthrough than an insight. ?? 

[Raptorsin7]

@Nahm Thanks. Yeah, this seems like a major turning point 

[Consilience]

Such an important insight!  

There are multiple "orders" of equanimity. There's the equanimity we can systematically cultivate through meditation, which is when the mind is neither pushing or pulling at experience. And then there's a second order, existential equanimity that is always present. It is the noticing we can never NOT be with whatever is occurring by virtue of the fact that it is occurring. This second order of equanimity is always available due to it being a fundamental feature of reality. We can always see that reality is never not equanimous with itself because in order for anything to be, it must be. Ha. 

The cool part is, the more we meditate, the more the mind actually harmonizes with this existential equanimity. The human mind literally starts to mirror the mind of reality. That's mindfulness  

But on the other hand, stepping into the equanimity of our true nature is always available, even when the mind is pushing or pulling at experience. That's Liberation.