Fair Weather Equanimity

RichardH

Sometimes life just chugs along, maybe even for a few years. There are ups and downs...warts, and stresses, but there is a certain parameter of normality. During these periods there can be a form of "middle way" realized, a way of not attaching or rejecting, where there is equanimity. It is a kind of Buddhist "having it all together". But this equanimity is really balanced on a three legged stool, and sooner or later that stool gets kicked out, and our world falls apart. Then the equanimity which we have come to see as unconditional is revealed to be very conditional, and we go through hardcore Dukkha. I've had both..cycle through .. and won't pretend I'm o.k. with things falling apart. The good news is that right at that edge of human suffering, life and death, is the opportunity to open most.

just sharing stuff.

taiyaki

Just being ok with what is. Shitty zazen. Good zazen. Shitty day or good day.

Everything is workable.

RichardH

Just being ok with what is. Shitty zazen. Good zazen. Shitty day or good day.

Everything is workable.

Hi Taiyaki

Yes sure, that is true.. much of the time. But there will also be not ok. That not ok is the point.

It is practice that is not just beyond our comfort zone, but at our wit's end... and that is when remarkable things can happen.

. Here is a personal example.... Some time ago my partner was bedridden with open radiation burns from cancer therapy. She was in terrible pain....and there was no relief ... no escape. She said.. "I am like a bug pinned to the wall, I can either wiggle or just be the wall". ...and then she opened at the edge. ...and she also later recovered, thank goodness.

So yes most of the time things are "workable"... but sometimes it is when they are not workable...and we have to let go right down to our bones,, that we can know peace and non-suffering most.

Jeffrey

Thanks for posting this.

RichardH

Thanks for posting this.

Glad it was familiar.

Lady_Alison

I kinda understand what you mean...I didn't know my breaking point until a year ago until a death broke my happy go lucky life and the world felt like it was crashing around me.

I went to the edge of my own sanity, I think death does that...and I'm glad it did. But then something wonderful happened...I sort of surrendered to it all. Descent into fire and madness and came out with cool perspective.

I am reborn through pain and suffering. Dear God, may I always suffer.

Thank you for sharing that, I enjoy your threads. :om:

Just being ok with what is. Shitty zazen. Good zazen. Shitty day or good day.

Everything is workable.

Hi Taiyaki

Yes sure, that is true.. much of the time. But there will also be not ok. That not ok is the point.

It is practice that is not just beyond our comfort zone, but at our wit's end... and that is when remarkable things can happen.

. Here is a personal example.... Some time ago my partner was bedridden with open radiation burns from cancer therapy. She was in terrible pain....and there was no relief ... no escape. She said.. "I am like a bug pinned to the wall, I can either wiggle or just be the wall". ...and then she opened at the edge. ...and she also later recovered, thank goodness.

So yes most of the time things are "workable"... but sometimes it is when they are not workable...and we have to let go right down to our bones,, that we can know peace and non-suffering most.