Vitamin E: How To Cultivate Equanimity Amidst Political Chaos | Election Sanity Series | Roshi Joan Halifax
Roshi Joan Halifax, a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist, and pioneer in end-of-life care, discusses cultivating equanimity ("vitamin E") amidst political chaos. She shares practical advice on staying engaged without losing one's mind, emphasizing the "strong back, soft front" approach and the importance of unselfish motivation.
Deep Dive Analysis
16 Topic Outline
Introduction to Equanimity and Roshi Joan Halifax
Why Equanimity is Personally Challenging for Roshi Joan
Defining Equanimity: Upeka and Metacognition
The Metaphor of Strong Back, Soft Front
Understanding Strong Front, Soft Back and its Roots in Fear
Cultivating Equanimity Amidst Political Chaos: The Gandhi Example
Equanimity as the Final Brahma Vihara and its Interdependence
Roshi Joan's Personal Struggle with Equanimity and Upregulation
News Consumption, Charnel Ground Practice, and Equanimity
Keeping Equanimity Vibrant and Not Dull
The Strategic Cultivation of Loving-Kindness
Cultivating Equanimity Through Body Awareness and Altruistic Motivation
Identifying and Sustaining Unselfish Motivation
Navigating Post-Election Equanimity and Impermanence
The Eight Worldly Winds and Equanimity as Protection
Working the Edge: Accountability vs. Cruelty
5 Key Concepts
Equanimity (Upeka)
The Pali word 'upeka' means 'to look over' or 'to look with patience.' It's described as a metacognition where one internally bears witness to whatever arises, holding it without pushing away, grasping, or being ruled by like/dislike. It's a deep groundedness with an open front, allowing for radical inclusivity.
Grandmother's Heart (Ro Bai Shin)
An expression used in Zen to describe a heart that is without fear and capable of including everything without rejection. It embodies wisdom and insight gained from life experience, such as witnessing birth and death, and holding all experiences with deep acceptance.
Strong Back, Soft Front
A physical and embodied metaphor for an internal state that allows one to uphold oneself in any conditions without turning away. A strong back signifies dignity, presence, and nimbleness, while a soft front represents the capacity to stay open and bear witness to whatever is happening.
Strong Front, Soft Back
This describes a defensive posture where an individual presents a 'puffed up chest' or 'armor of identity' (strong front), but behind it lies fear and a weak back, indicating an inability to uphold oneself in difficult conditions. This often manifests as aggression, hostility, or bullying.
Eight Worldly Winds
A Buddhist concept referring to eight pairs of experiences that can pull people off balance: praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, and fame and disrepute. Equanimity acts as a protection, helping one not to be stuck by the 'stickiness' of these experiences.
6 Questions Answered
Roshi Joan Halifax finds equanimity challenging because she is a passionate person deeply engaged in contemporary social and political events, feeling the suffering and injustice in the world. She has focused extensively on compassion but less on equanimity.
No, equanimity is not bovine neutrality or indifference; its near enemy is indifference. Instead, it is a deep internal groundedness with a strong back and an open front, allowing for radical inclusivity and the capacity to uphold oneself in difficult conditions.
Equanimity is the fulfillment of the other Brahma Viharas, providing balance and grounding. Without equanimity, loving-kindness can become attachment, compassion can become pity or over-identification, and sympathetic joy can lead to comparison or excessive exuberance.
To keep equanimity vibrant, Roshi Joan Halifax recommends cultivating a sense of humor and intentionally warming and moistening the heart with loving-kindness, especially if equanimity feels like a withdrawal or bypassing.
To cultivate an unselfish motivation, one can bring to mind someone who is struggling (e.g., a dying friend, a child) and send them loving-kindness and aspirations for their well-being, contemplating their future joy and working towards it. This shifts focus from personal enlightenment to serving others.
Equanimity provides protection by helping individuals not to be attached to the outcomes of praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, and fame and disrepute. It allows one to recognize when caught in their grip and to loosen that hold.
31 Actionable Insights
1. Embrace Radical Inclusivity
Cultivate a “grandmother’s heart” or “big arms” mindset to hold everything without rejection, including all experiences and people, because anytime you hold something apart, you’re afraid of it.
2. Cultivate Strong Back, Open Front
Adopt a posture and mindset of a “strong back” for grounding and dignity, combined with an “open front” for receptivity and radical inclusivity, to uphold yourself amidst difficult conditions and connect deeply.
3. Practice Internal Bearing Witness
Engage in metacognition by bearing witness internally to whatever arises within you, holding it without pushing it away, grasping it, or being ruled by like and dislike, to cultivate equanimity.
4. Systematically Recall Altruistic Motivation
Regularly bring to mind and articulate an unselfish, altruistic motivation for your practice, such as transforming your suffering to benefit others, as this is key to prevent your practice from becoming a self-improvement program.
5. Balance Heart Qualities with Equanimity
Understand that equanimity is the linchpin for the other Brahma Viharas; practice loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy with equanimity to prevent them from becoming attachment, pity/cruelty, or comparison/over-exuberance.
6. Disarm Your Inner Armor
Recognize that the armor you naturally build in response to the world prevents authenticity and connection, and actively work towards disarmament throughout your life.
7. Pray for Your “Enemy”
When faced with aggression or perceived enemies, follow Gandhi’s example by sending loving kindness (Meta) to them, recognizing their suffering and wishing them to move out of it.
8. Ground and Be Present
Begin by grounding yourself, bringing attention to your breath, feet, or sitz bones, as embodied stability is essential for mental clarity and insight, especially when facing complex or upsetting situations.
9. Develop Flexible Inner Strength
Cultivate a “strong back” that is nimble and pliable like bamboo, avoiding rigidity, to uphold yourself amidst complexity and prevent mental or emotional cracking.
10. Maintain Openness to Suffering
Complement your strong back with an “open front” to bear witness and be present for whatever is happening, including suffering, without turning away.
11. Navigate Worldly Winds with Equanimity
Use equanimity as protection from the “eight worldly winds” (praise/blame, success/failure, pleasure/pain, fame/disrepute) by recognizing when you’re caught in their grip and opening the hand of thought and feeling to loosen attachment.
12. Listen to Your Body’s Signals
Practice mindfulness of the body by noticing physical sensations like a gripping gut, increased heart rate, or tension in the shoulders/jaw, as these are signals that your body is struggling to maintain balance.
13. Use Breath for Self-Regulation
After noticing physical signals of struggle, consciously work with your breath to help regulate your internal state and regain balance.
14. Regulate Upregulated States
When you find yourself upregulated by worry or concern (e.g., heart beating faster, mind racing), acknowledge the concern without rejecting it, then apply methods like deep breaths to downregulate and regain balance.
15. Connect to Altruism Through Contemplation
To identify and articulate unselfish motivation, bring to mind someone struggling or a loved one, sending them loving kindness and contemplating their future well-being, feeling this aspiration somatically and sincerely.
16. Imagine and Work for the Best
Cultivate imagination to envision the best possible future for your loved ones and the planet, and then actively work towards actualizing that vision, operating from a base of possibility rather than sinking into despair.
17. Meet Outcomes with Confidence
Cultivate confidence, a strong back, and an open front to meet any outcome fully, giving your best effort in the meantime, and trusting that you will navigate whatever arises.
18. Trust Impermanence for Resilience
Cultivate trust in the truth of impermanence, understanding that things will inevitably change, which can help you ride the waves of life and correct your course without being stuck by current conditions.
19. Embrace Continuous Course Correction
Adopt a mindset of “continuous failure” and “tacking” like a sailboat, understanding that you will always be correcting your course, which fosters learning and resilience rather than seeking perfection.
20. Recognize Fear in Defensiveness
Observe that a “strong front” or armored identity in others often indicates a “soft back” or fear, as much energy is expended in defining and defending the self rather than recognizing interconnectedness.
21. Apply Loving Kindness to Ego
When the ego acts as an “assassin of the good,” turn loving kindness towards it without being consumed, recognizing it as a landscape of suffering to be observed rather than indulged.
22. Practice Metta as Mind Training
Engage in loving kindness (Metta) practice as “reps” to shift habitual negative internal narratives (under-mutter) to pro-social, less toxic habits, thereby changing the content of your pre-conscious experience.
23. Cultivate Humor and Loving Kindness
To keep equanimity vibrant and prevent it from becoming dull or a form of bypassing, cultivate a sense of humor and intentionally warm and moisten your heart with loving kindness, both by receiving it through friendship and giving it to others.
24. Maintain a Varied Life Diet
Ensure a varied “diet” of experiences that includes beauty, joy, deep friendships, and laughter, alongside engaging with the truth of suffering in the world, to maintain overall well-being and balance.
25. Engage Suffering Without Overwhelm
When exposed to suffering (e.g., news, difficult environments), practice finding the “sweet spot” between over-identifying and objectifying, avoiding dissociation or bypassing, but also not being overwhelmed.
26. Transform Helplessness into Agency
Reduce news consumption and engage in activities like hiking or spending time in nature to transform feelings of helplessness into a sense of agency.
27. Integrate All Experiences into Practice
Adopt the Zen concept of “supreme meal” by “rolling everything into your practice,” meaning to integrate all life experiences, even challenging ones, as opportunities for spiritual development.
28. Build Character from Setbacks
Understand that developing strength and character often comes from “falling over the edge” and learning to recover from difficult experiences, rather than avoiding them entirely.
29. Reframe Life Changes as Natural
Cultivate equanimity by reframing the changes and fluctuations in life (like the “worldly winds”) as natural phenomena, not as personal failures, which helps to loosen their grip.
30. Loosen the Grip of Fear
Practice metacognition to “look over” your internal experience, noticing where mental or emotional knots are tightening, and then consciously loosen that grip with deep patience, refusing to be ruled by tightness or fear.
31. Balance Accountability with Compassion
When observing negative consequences for others, understand the value of accountability and cause-and-effect, but use keen self-observation and wisdom to avoid being caught in schadenfreude or cruelty, even when someone “got what they deserved.”
8 Key Quotes
If there is one boundless abode that I need to work on, it is equanimity.
Roshi Joan Halifax
Equanimity is having big arms, not arms that are overweight per se, but big arms so big that it can hold everything. It rejects nothing.
Roshi Joan Halifax
Equanimity without loving kindness is cold. Equanimity without compassion doesn't care. Equanimity without altruistic or sympathetic joy is not affected in the sense of positivity, is not lifted up by the joy of others.
Roshi Joan Halifax
The ego will simply, you know, it's like an assassin of the good. It's just, you know, waiting behind the biggest rock for any morsel of goodness to come, and it attacks.
Roshi Joan Halifax
Trust in the truth of impermanence. You know, that Berlin Wall came down. Things will inevitably change.
Roshi Joan Halifax
You can't sail straight into port. You're always tacking.
Roshi Joan Halifax
Continuous failure, continuous failure. Well, may you course correct and continuously fail while laughing.
Roshi Joan Halifax
The body is saying, whoa, I am struggling in a certain way to keep balance in the midst of conditions.
Roshi Joan Halifax
1 Protocols
Cultivating Strong Back, Soft Front
Roshi Joan Halifax- Allow attention to be in the breath to begin the embodiment process.
- Get grounded, bringing your attention to your feet on the floor or your sitz bones on a cushion.
- Move your attention to your motivation, ensuring an altruistic intention.
- Shift attention to your back as a physical metaphor, aiming for dignity, presence, and nimbleness, like a stalk of bamboo, not rigidity.
- Complement this with an open front, allowing yourself to stay open and bear witness to whatever is happening.