Fulcrum of Equanimity

 

Padraig O’Tuama:

We might have some capacity to learn how to respond with more equanimity to these forces we cannot control. 

Sharon Salzberg:

Certainly if I heard the word “equanimity,” long ago, I’d have thought, that’s really bizarre. What does that mean? And so many times, we think it means indifference, but it really doesn’t. It’s such a huge capacity of our hearts to see what we’re going through, to see what others are going through, and to just have this perspective of, there is change in life, and there is light in the darkness and darkness in the light. And we’re not avoiding pain, because some things just hurt. That’s fundamental. But we’re holding it in a way that it’s like the love is stronger than the pain, even. And then we can really be with things in a very, very different way.

Equanimity is a word which has crept up a lot in my life lately and it is usually just on the other side of integration, or should I say productive integration?!

Sometimes it is hard to access this sense of balance especially when we intentionally discard the difficult pieces, the grief and the sorrow. The scales immediately tip in what we had wagered was a positive direction only to render an imbalance which, though filled with “good” stuff, is hard to budge and so it stagnates. 

This “very, very different way” incorporates the other ingredients of life which, though difficult, allow the scales to move and achieve a balance which quivers, though never far from a fulcrum of grace. The peaks are made low and the valleys raised!