Here we are at the final of the Four Brahma Viharas:
1. Metta: loving kindness
2. Karuna: compassion
3. Mudita: sympathetic joy
4. Upekkha: equanimity
This is maybe the hardest brahma vihara of all for me. I live my life on an emotional rollercoaster, and I always have. I tend toward the happy, except in periods of sadness. This year of such deep mourning finds me in a near-constant spiral between the two extremes.
Buddhanet again: "In the practice
of Upekkha Bhavana one first selects the neutral person. Bearing him [sic]
in mind one reflects that he is the owner of his own Kamma. [...] When one does so
with understanding, the even state of mind with regard to the person
arises." What interests me about this passage is the notion of equanimity as a characteristic of a person as well as a way of relating to that person. "The neutral person," it seems to me, isn't necessarily an even-keeled one, but they may be touched by your equanimity towards them. It's a little bit like paying it forward.
When I think of trying to regard someone with that "even state of mind" even as my joys and sorrows cloud around me all the time, I imagine ascending to a small cloud, above the riot of sunshine and rain, and observing the person from there. Up there, all of the preconceptions and assumptions and other baggage one might carry with regard to a person fades away, and all you are left with is the connection between that person and you. The world might be a better place if we all had those little clouds to tote around.
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