From Buddhist Psychology, again:

The Still Center
 

           This evening I went running at dusk, through quiet neighborhoods that smelled crisp like winter and rich like the decay of autumn. For a moment, as I moved, I think I understood something, in a full-being way of ‘understanding,’ like pañña. It might have been equanimity, but I’m not sure. The hush of falling night slanted with the falling season, and emotions barreled through me as I ran: poignant nostalgia, inspiration, longing, bliss. I watched feelings and images storm through my mind and my belly. It was like cinema—I didn’t own them and they were beautiful, and then they left. I kept running. I felt the rhythm of my feet falling, and my breath. Winter’s bite, leaves rotting in gutters, incandescent clouds.

            This week I have playing with the ideas of equanimity and intimacy. For a long time I’ve had an instinctual aversion to the Buddhist idea of equanimity (upekkha). Like many Westerners exposed to Buddhism, the concept of equanimity often strikes me as dry and disengaged. I love the ups and downs of my experience; vividness and feeling are so real. The tranquility of upekkha seems like a dangerously uninspired flat-line. According to the description of equanimity in the Anguttara, for example, a person who has experienced a sense impression from the world or formulated a mind-object should be “neither glad-minded or sad-minded,” and should “[abide] with equanimity, mindful and clearly conscious.” How can I move through the absurdity of my human life and not feel glad or sad? Isn’t the meaning in all of these passing moments to be found precisely in my corresponding internal states of exaltation or poignant sorrow?

            If I shift my understanding of ‘emotion’ and ‘attachment,’ however, I am much more willing to nurture upekkha in my everyday life. In my instinctive interpretation I tend to think that equanimity, in its extinguishment of desire and aversion, somehow lessens my engagement with the events of my human experience—it previously has seemed to me that the abode of equanimity is a cool internal sanctuary, separate from the texture of life that I love. This week in the still fall evening, however, I was able to refashion my understanding of equanimity. Instead of seeing the state of upekkha as one of disengagement from reality, I felt it as surrender and an acceptance of the way that the world truly is. When I identify with a feeling of sorrow, for example, or cling to a passing wave of euphoria, I am distorting the fabric of the moment with desire and delusion. Maybe the abode of equanimity, instead of implying an abandonment of my emotional engagement with a moment, denotes a sort of surrender to reality. Maybe it means that I should simply recognize the complexity of my experience of each moment and then let it flow through me like water. In this way, I can let go of my need for control and engage with the events in my life with more presence and intimacy. It’s like standing at the eye of the hurricane, with the space to truly appreciate the strength and grandeur of its gyre, and with the presence to be plied by wind and keep moving.

            I’m not entirely sure what the Buddha himself would say about this interpretation of upekkha—I am still deeply committed to my emotional responses as spicy and integral to the roller coaster that I love. But maybe a certain quality of observation will allow the ups and downs to flower more organically, and for me to see them and love them and release them, moving forward with poise and compassion.