No Longer Accepting What I Can't Change
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Equanimity (upekkha in Pali; in Sanskrit upeksa) is one of those uber qualities in Buddhism. It’s the last in each of the lists of the Ten Paramis, the Four Immeasurables, and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. And it's what's left when single-minded attention, rapture, and joy are let go of while cultivating the jhanas—the states of meditative absorption the Buddhas was said to pass through before his enlightenment. Needless to say, equanimity holds a special place in Buddhism as the quality that gives us stability and equipoise in the face of life’s changes and challenges. It’s an unshakeable ease that doesn’t rely on the need for things to go our way, but arises out of a clear understanding and deep acceptance of things as they are.
As I thought about explaining equanimity to Aunt Mary in Ohio—I don't have an aunt called Mary nor any relatives in Ohio, but for years I've used the phrase to describe that someone in your family who's interested in what you do as a spiritual practice but has no knowledge of Buddhism and therefore requires a down-to-earth explanation— I thought that the term can best be summed up with the first sentence of the Serenity Prayer: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." But it also needs to be balanced by Angela Davis’ rephrasing: “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” In other words, equanimity is neither indifference nor passivity. It’s not equal to resignation. It doesn’t mean we’ve emotionally flatlined or are ignoring the world's ills so we can remain in a state of quiet bliss. To be equanimous means to be deeply caring, and to support that care with bright wisdom and fierce determination. It means to remain unmoved in the face of the "eight worldly winds" of gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Because when we're not consumed by getting or losing, when we're not thrown about by others' opinions or judgments, when we're not captive to our wants or our discomfort, we can focus our energy and our strength on those things that matters most—like cultivating love and compassion and working for justice and freedom.
I'll confess that for years I didn't talk about equanimity myself because I thought it was just too easy to interpret it as indifference. Then I came up with the perfect analogy to describe it—though I'm certain I'm not the only one to have used it. Being equanimous doesn't mean flattening the ocean's waves; it means learning to ride them. Whether they're tiny swells or ten-foot seiches, the waves in our minds and lives are workable as long as we neither fight them (that's the acceptance part) nor ignore them (that's the changing what needs to be changed part). As a wise friend once told me, sometimes you just have to tie yourself to the mast and ride out the storm. She was referring to the story of Ulysses who, returning home from the Trojan War, asks his sailors to plug their ears, tie him to the main mast of their boat, and under no circumstances listen to him as they sail through the Siren's Islands. Sure enough, the moment Ulysses hears the sirens, he begs his men to untie him. But with their ears safely stopped up, they don't hear the mesmerizing song that would lure them all to crash on the rocks and become the sirens' prey. Equanimity is like that rope and earplugs combo. It doesn't prevent you from feeling the pull—of desire or anger or any other strong emotion—but it saves you from throwing yourself overboard in its wake.
Equanimity is therefore stability, non-reactivity, serenity. It is both a buffer for strong emotions and the result of accepting life's many difficulties. But there's another way to think of equanimity, and that's as spaciousness. Whether things happen the way I want them to or not, I know I have enough space within me to meet what is and then decide how to proceed. Sometimes, it'll mean accepting and moving on. Other times, it'll entail changing what's no longer acceptable. Either way, equanimity ensures that I'll engage love and compassion and joy—to name just a few other qualities—with a bit more care.
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