UnMind 32. Four Immeasurables Quartet 4: Equanimity

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Equilibrium
Maybe even equipoise.
It’s in the balance.

Equanimity, the fourth and last of the immeasurables of Buddhism:

Metta (loving kindness)
Karuna (compassion)
Mudita (sympathetic joy or empathy)
Upekkha (equanimity)

Upekkha. Has the ring of authenticity to it, doesn’t it? Equanimity, not so much. Too familiar, too ordinary. Besides, nobody really knows what it means. Note how much more authoritative it sounds when we use the Sanskrit? Brings to mind the Peter Sellers scene in The Naked Truth where, trying to pass for Irish in a pub in order to buy a bomb from the IRA says, “Well, we always have the Gaelic…” and launching into a monologue is immediately punched in the nose and thrown out of the bar. Fake accent of an Englishman the dead giveaway.

This tendency — to rely heavily on jargonspeak — has a similar deleterious effect in any category of discourse, and can be especially disingenuous in dharma dialog. It sets up an “us and them” dichotomy, whether intended or not. It tends to imply that the speaker possesses greater knowledge, more expertise — at least in her or his own estimation — and therefore presumably the listener is rendered lesser in that regard. It leverages the faux asymmetry of the relationship. Zen is, or should be, the great equalizer.

The implication is that, by boldly brandishing the Zen vernacular, I must have mastered its deeper meaning. This is why we have to keep reminding ourselves that we do not master Zen — in any language — it masters us. Far better to de-mystify any discussion, eliminating jargon wherever possible, and to rely on our own, direct experience — and plain language — to explore the true meaning of these ancient teachings. We teach each other Buddhism, as Matsuoka Roshi often said.

Equanimity brings to mind other terms derived from the same root, such as equipoise, and equilibrium. The good thing about these terms is that they imply something physical, rather than emotional, or mental. The first two syllables derive from “equal,” and the dictionary definitions all refer to balance. So all three would have some connection to the Sanskrit samadhi, one of the more frequently mentioned jargon terms in Buddhism.

In zazen, if we sit still enough for long enough, we begin to experience equipoise in our upright seated posture, coming into perfect alignment with gravity. All forces of mass and weight come to center around the spine, like the cables supporting a digital cell tower. When we hit that sweet spot in the middle of our stomach, it is as if we are floating off the cushion — free falling. Equilibrium ensues, affecting mental clarity and emotional composure. Eventually equanimity manifests even in the social sphere, where relationships with others benefit from less friction and conflict.

If we regard equanimity, along with loving kindness, compassion, and empathy, as essentially immeasurable, they connect to Master Dogen’s closing lines in Jijuyu Zammai (Self-fulfilling Samadhi):

Hundreds of things all manifest original practice from the original face
It is impossible to measure
Know that even if all the buddhas of the ten directions
As innumerable as the sands of the Ganges
Exert their strength and with the Buddha’s wisdom
Try to measure the merits of one person’s zazen
They will not be able to fully comprehend it

So what is truly immeasurable is the whole of the effect, the merit, of zazen. Zen claims to transmit Buddha’s meditation, the very same process that took place that night under the Bodhi tree some two-and-a-half millennia ago. We all have all the same equipment to work with that he had, after all — the toolkit comes with birth as a human being. We also enjoy relatively supportive causes and conditions, the circumstances of contemporary life, including exposure to the buddha-dharma, and access to training in meditation. As Hakuin Zenji asks toward the end of Zazen Wasan (Song of Zazen), “What is there outside us? What is there we lack?”

He goes on to claim that “Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes. This earth where we stand is the pure Lotus Land and this very body the body of Buddha.” A bit hard to swallow, in the light of our self-effacing self-doubt, which at its worse becomes the life sentence of self-loathing. Nobody said this would be easy.

Bringing our focus back to zazen, I think it is critical to recognize and accept that the immeasurables of this excellent method are also the most important aspects. It matters less how regularly we sit in meditation, how frequently, how long we sit, et cetera. Whatever measurable parameters we may put around it, the most important is that we simply never give up, as Matsuoka Roshi always reminded us.

The downside to setting up strict regimens around zazen — as we are prone to do around working out, aerobics, and other activities that we expect to show results — is that the results of zazen are not so obvious. And, just as with any goal-oriented activity, if and when we do not live up to our own expectations, we are naturally disappointed, may become discouraged, and tend to reaffirm our own self-criticizing proclivity, proving that we are the failure we always suspected we were.

Better to sit without expectations, but without abandoning our aspiration to something that cannot be so simply expressed as a measurable goal. This does not mean that we do not set reasonable benchmarks to assure enough depth of experience that we give zazen a legitimate chance to work its magic. But the immeasurable of the qualitative dimension of the experience takes precedence and priority over any quantifiable dimension.

Which brings us back to the old cliché, “Just sit.” This overworked expression is not a cavalier or flip comment meant to dismiss any consideration of the serious issues that we face, including actual mental and chemical imbalances that we may be dealing with, but to suggest that when we do sit, we just sit, rather than engaging in daydreaming, planning, ruminating over the past, et cetera.

If we turn up the intensity knob, sitting “more” in the qualitative sense when we are actually sitting, then we begin to manifest the true meaning of “just sit.” Would it were so simple. But of course we find that just sitting includes the full panoply of monkey-mind machinations, the impertinent imprecations of negative thinking on steroids, as well as the more trivial but distracting push-you pull-me of everyday tedium, those mundane but persistent weasels of samsara ripping our flesh. It is difficult to feel equanimous on the Titanic. The ship is definitely going down, and it doesn’t matter that the lifeboats are made in Japan. Zen is American as apple pie.

The gateway drug to equanimity is patience. If we can come to practice patience on the cushion — patience with our situation in this imperfect world, and patience with the monkey’s inept attempts to cope with it — we may find our way clear to the equilibrium, the equipoise, the equanimity that is at the heart of all the clamor, clutter, and seeming chaos. It is all floating in samadhi. Time to release our grip on our imagined reality, so as to float in the equanimity of Zen.