Post #135: What Was Equanimity Again?

3 Sep. 2024

“Antoninus Pius died in his seventieth​ year, after being taken with a severe fever at Lorium. When his condition kept deteriorating, he committed the state to Marcus Antoninus and gave orders for the golden statue of Fortune that stood in the bed-chamber of the emperor to be handed over to him. Then he gave out the watchword of the day—Equanimity—and, turning as if to sleep, he passed away.”

— Historia Augusta: Life of Antoninus Pius 12.4–6

     Equanimity as a philosophical ideal, no less familiar to the Antonines and other ancient Stoics than to Buddhists today, refers to a balanced, serene state of mind, free of all outward perturbation or inward agitation. Thus, not only was it considered the highest good by one of the most celebrated Roman emperors (adoptive father and mentor of Marcus Aurelius, the author of the famous Meditations), it also forms an important bridge between East and West.

     The Mangala Sutta, an especially ancient Pali discourse included in the Sutta Nipata (2.4), lists in order of importance the thirty-two greatest blessings that a human being might wish for in this world, and culminates in the following verses:

When faced with the vicissitudes of life

The minds of the wise remain unshaken—

Ever sorrowless, stainless, and secure.

The wise are everywhere invincible;

Wherever they go, they are safe.

Theirs is the greatest blessing.

     The Buddhists would accept the basic definition of equanimity offered above, but add that cultivating such a state presumes the ability to observe without reaction or judgment the thoughts and sensations that arise and pass incessantly before the mind’s eye. So long as we remain fully immersed in our boundless hunger for the pleasant (and dread of the unpleasant) elements in whatever we experience, mentally or physically (or rather, both at the same time, invariably), no detached mindfulness is ever possible—craving and clinging cannot be brought to a halt, and agitation therefore can never cease, even if it may sometimes be subtle enough to escape our notice.

     To arrive at true equanimity, then, requires a turn towards experiential insight into the inherent impermanence and impersonality that characterizes all conditioned things, the full range of our human experience included. What seems so personal to us, the Buddhists insist against all appearances, does not really belong to us any more than do winds blowing in the sky (Samyutta Nikaya 36:12), which may move the branches and leaves of a tree, but cannot agitate a mighty trunk that stands firmly enough upon its roots.

     In the way S.N. Goenka teaches Vipassana, he always makes a point of putting equanimity at the very center of his instructions, repeating throughout his courses that “equanimity is purity,” that “every moment of equanimity is a moment of your liberation,” and that deepening equanimity alone is the true yardstick of progress on the Path. It is no mere idiosyncrasy on Goenka’s part that leads him to put such stress on upekkha. The Theravadan orthodoxy itself considered equanimity one of the four divine abodes or sublime states (brahmavihara); one of seven factors of enlightenment (bojjhangas); and one of the ten perfections (paramis). Profound equanimity is said to arise in conjunction with the highest states of concentration (jhanas) and is understood to be the immediate antidote, in the chain of dependent origination, to reaction in general and craving and clinging in particular.

     Vipassana training makes much of the “storms” that all of us must invariably pass through in the course not only of retreats, but of our lives in general. These episodes of intense mental, physical, and emotional agitation feel like the opposite of mental balance by their very nature. Yet, from a Vipassana perspective, equanimity can nonetheless be maintained, even at the height of such storms, if the inner turmoil is observed with detachment. Even when the winds are so strong (or our minds are so temporarily weak) that we cannot help reacting (though we understand all-too well that we should not), we may still be fully aware of our reactiveness itself and thereby bring our minds into what might be called a kind of secondary equilibrium. However crucial the cultivation of equanimity may be, it becomes an obstacle to mature practice if it is made the object of craving and clinging—as if only a balanced mind were an acceptable one.

     The deeper meaning of equanimity, on the Vipassana interpretation (generally accepted by other Buddhist schools, though with differences of emphasis), is that it allows the old habit-patterns generated by craving, aversion, and ignorance to be gradually dissolved and the mind to be purified accordingly. This crucial dimension of purification is sometimes met with skepticism or even resistance, as if it meant that cherished parts of one’s personality would be lost and deepening equanimity should be expected to produce not a vivifying, joy-enhancing effect, but a numbing or even deadening of our pleasures—perhaps leaving us (so goes the fear) mere vegetables for anyone to cut at will (#31).

     It is true that so far as the cruder human pleasures are concerned, one would expect the flames of desire to be tamped down with time, though only very slowly and thus with plenty of opportunity to reconsider and reverse direction should one prefer to do so. More seasoned meditators are likelier to struggle with the opposite, namely a measure (not always openly admitted) of frustration with the incremental pace at which changes for the better take place, if they become visible all. Instead of fearing for their true personalities on the mat, they more commonly feel that only through their practice can it be made to emerge fully and properly, though only very gradually and with much deplorable backtracking. Hence the liberating effect of equanimity is certainly a central promise of the practice, but not something to be theorized or preached about; it needs to be experienced to be believed.

     Should you be able to confirm by personal experience, hence incontrovertibly for you, the truth of what the textbook promises, congratulations! Only don’t let the thrilling discovery tempt you into letting down your guard of mindfulness, imagining that now you have made a lifelong companion of Equanimity, who will never leave your side again. The foundation for a lifelong intimacy may indeed have been laid, but don’t set yourself up for disappointment. Your new friend will keep coming and going as it suits him, not as it pleases you. And you will need to learn equanimity with that, too.