Equanimity – Elizabeth Ü

May 15, 2020

If— by Rudyard Kipling: a poem for when people are behaving badly

Over a decade ago, in a moment when I knew I needed that kind of support, I booked myself into Sonoma Ashram for a few days. One afternoon I met with Babaji, the Ashram’s founder and resident monk. Weeping, I described the pain of being misunderstood, and worse, my anguish at being misrepresented to others.

“If someone is saying things about you that aren’t true,” he suggested, “swish cold water around in your mouth for a few seconds and then spit it out.”

He also recommended I try washing my feet in cold water.

Whenever I remember to do these things, I remember how powerful it can be to bring my attention to a part of my physical body, rather than let the unhelpful thought pattern continue to go ’round and ’round and ’round in my head. The shock of cold water often helps me see things from a different perspective, and sometimes that’s all it takes to break free from a mental whirlpool.

***

And just as often, words written by wiser souls are the balm.

Apart from the fact that “being a man” has never been a motivating factor for me, this poem is really helping this morning.

May I meet bad behavior in others without resorting to it myself!

If—
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source

February 18, 2020June 15, 2022

On the possibility of integrating past identities

I’ve been thinking about the difference between trying to let go of past identities I’ve held dear, vs somehow integrating them.

An example of a past identity: throughout my high school and college years I obsessed about becoming a climbing bum, and then spent another several years attempting to live out that dream in Yosemite and Joshua Tree amongst the climbers I used to read about in magazines. It never really felt right, and to be fair, I did a lot more hanging out with climbers than I did actual climbing. I hesitate to mention to people that I ever “was” a climber — even though it was very much my thing, for thirteen years! — because I’ve learned that people who are into climbing get very excited to attach all sorts of ideas onto me that didn’t even fit back then.

Still, I cannot deny the Climber in me. Whenever my body touches stone, or uses its fingers and limbs to pull the rest of my body upward, I am overcome with a strong sense of knowing: THIS is what this body was born to do.

Is that true though? Continue reading “On the possibility of integrating past identities”

October 13, 2019

Using the Brahma Viharas to work with their near enemies

I recently spent 8 days at a retreat on the topic of the Brahma Viharas (also known as the Four Divine Abodes, or the Four Immeasurables in Buddhism), which are:

Metta = Loving Kindness / Goodwill;
Karuna = Compassion (…arises when we meet suffering with metta);
Mudita = Joy (…arises when we meet happiness, good fortune, or positive qualities with metta); and
Upekkha / Equanimity (…arises when we meet change or impermanence with metta).

We also covered the so-called “near enemies” of each brahma vihara, which can arise when we tend toward self-centeredness or see ourselves as separate from others:

Metta / Loving kindness can turn into a kind of possessive love or attachment to a particular path for them (eg going from genuinely wanting the best for someone, to believing you know specifically what is best for them);
Karuna / Compassion can turn into grief or overwhelm;
Mudita / Joy can turn into a sense of intoxication with one’s own or another’s joyful situation; and
Upekkha / Equanimity can turn into indifference or apathy.

The most powerful part of the retreat for me was a practice in which we were encouraged to use a specific brahma vihara to “lift up” each of the near enemies as they came up, in a particular sequence.

If you start to get too attached to a person or an outcome, compassion can help you remember that they are on their own journey;
If you’re getting overwhelmed with your own suffering (or someone else’s, or the suffering of the entire world), you can reflect on people’s positive qualities or the positive aspects of the situation;
If you become so intoxicated with someone else’s choices, positive qualities, or way of being that start wanting some aspect of their life for yourself, you can cultivate a sense of contentment with your own path;
If you find yourself becoming apathetic or nihilistic because you’re taking “accepting things as they are” to an extreme, a dose of loving kindness can rekindle your sense of care.

Here’s my best attempt at a diagram to describe this practice. May it serve those of us who would like to cultivate a bit more connectedness in a world full of forces that would like us to believe we are separate from each other.

January 3, 2019

The gold In the Distance: a review of Hernan Diaz’s book

IMG_0214 (1).JPG A chance wander through a museum exhibit on British Columbia’s gold rush several years ago sparked my curiosity in California’s own gold rush in a way 4th grade history class (not to mention decades of living in that state) never managed to do; over the next several months I visited a number of gold rush sites, reading countless interpretive signs, historical marker plaques, and tourist pamphlets. I even made it through a good chunk of the massive Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation.

But wow, the events depicted in the fictional In the Distance by Hernan Diaz bring entirely new levels of insight and compassion to the varied and challenging realities people must have faced in those times, both externally and internally.

That said, this book is about so much more than the Gold Rush. I highly recommend it.

***

I decided to read In the Distance based on Roxane Gay’s review on Goodreads:

One of the best books I’ve read all year. The story, and the narrative voice is completely captivating. …the story itself and how it is told is absolutely unforgettable.

Fortunately for me, this book is part of Auckland Library’s vast e-book collection, and now I too can claim In the Distance as one of the best books I read in 2018.

The protagonist musters a surprising ability to face a range of often unfortunate conditions with equanimity and honor, while continuing to forge ahead with his seemingly-impossible quest. (In this sense he reminds me quite a bit of the convict in William Faulkner’s The Old Man, which I also loved, and which has also stayed with me quite strongly.) I was amazed at Diaz’s ability to convey interactions, landscapes, and objects through the eyes of someone who had never experienced anything like them before. Beginner’s Mind indeed!

Meanwhile, the author’s rich descriptions of San Francisco Bay, the the Sierra foothills, and deserts of America’s West, though unnamed and from a much different time, evoked more than a little nostalgia for places I know and love and am not sure when I might visit again.

Weeks after finishing it, this book still has me thinking about how we invent Purpose for ourselves. About the fine line (or is it attitude?) that differentiates Solitude from Loneliness. About those moments when we decide to Stop, and the moments when we have to Keep Going, even though we don’t want to. About Taking Stands when faced of inevitable suffering, and about Resignation when faced with the same. About Identities, both those that we choose, and those that get thrust upon us despite any desires we may have to set the record straight. About Learning, Curiosity, and Knowing, and how characters whose Obsessions are a few degrees more intense than our own serve as excellent mirrors. About Difference and Immigration. About unconsummated love and about that incessant Longing for something that lies just over the next horizon… if not even farther away.