How to Stay Calm No Matter What's Happening | Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren
This episode features a "Meditation Party" live from Omega with meditation teachers Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren, alongside host Dan Harris. They discuss achieving equanimity, navigating challenges in meditation practice, and addressing common struggles like attachment and anger.
Deep Dive Analysis
10 Topic Outline
Introduction to Equanimity and Meditation Party Retreat
Dan's Reflection on Equanimity and Patience in Practice
The Power of Intention and Welcoming Everything
"Attitude Check" and its Role in Meditation
Equanimity as a Core Aspect of Enlightenment
Discussion on Non-Attachment and Future Fixation
Dealing with Ruts and Seasons in Meditation Practice
Managing Distracting Thoughts During Meditation
Balancing Self-Identification with Selflessness in Practice
Working with Anger and Rumination in Meditation
5 Key Concepts
Equanimity
Equanimity is the skill of staying calm no matter what's happening, which involves allowing whatever is happening and choosing one's response. It's about being fully present with what's happening, cultivating an inner smoothness and looseness, and not being contracted or fighting against experience.
Intention in Meditation
Setting an intention at the beginning of a meditation practice involves harnessing one's imagination to define how they want to feel or relate to their experience. This intention acts as a powerful organizing principle, laying the tracks for the reality of the practice to follow.
Attitude Check
An 'attitude check' is a practice of asking, 'what's the attitude in the mind right now?' This inquiry helps reveal underlying mental states or contentions that might otherwise go unnoticed, allowing one to become aware of and address them before they take control.
Non-Attachment
Non-attachment is a Buddhist concept that involves not clinging to future outcomes or desires. Instead of focusing on what's next, it encourages a profound inquiry into 'being' and what it means to exist, fostering a curiosity that is not fixated but rather open and gentle.
Seasons of Practice
Meditation practice naturally progresses through different 'seasons,' starting with an initial period of novelty and peak experiences, akin to spring. This is followed by challenging periods, like fall and winter, where the novelty fades, and deeper, sometimes difficult, layers of self are revealed. A mature practice involves learning to persist through these times, even when feeling forsaken or that the practice isn't working.
7 Questions Answered
Cultivate equanimity by choosing to be okay with whatever is happening, welcoming all experiences without contention, and setting an intention at the beginning of your practice to be open and un-uptight.
Non-attachment can be reframed as getting really curious about 'being' and what it means to exist, which can open up a profound and exciting inquiry. It's a practice of noticing fixation and gently backing off, allowing for a more leisurely and enjoyable exploration.
Yes, it's very normal. Meditation practice has 'seasons,' moving from an initial spring of novelty and peak experiences to challenging periods where the novelty is gone and deeper layers are revealed. A mature practice involves learning to sit through feeling forsaken and broken.
For short meditations (10-15 minutes), commit to staying with the practice. For longer sits, it's sometimes okay to quickly write down an urgent thought to release it, but also investigate the feeling of urgency itself, as continually needing to update to the next thing contributes to discontent.
There's nothing to truly 'obliterate' about the self; both the individual self and the interconnectedness of existence are true simultaneously. Approaching meditation with hostility towards the self is not the best attitude, as mystical experiences are often accessed through the body and the self.
In meditation, focus on investigating how anger shows up in your body rather than explicitly seeking a psychological insight into past trauma, which is more akin to therapy. Allow yourself to feel the anger without guilt or shame, and observe its power without needing it to land anywhere. Insights can arise spontaneously from this welcoming curiosity.
Joseph Goldstein recommends a 'one-two punch': first, recognize it's a 'dead end' and no more thinking will help, then 'change the channel.' Second, cultivate 'love no matter what,' which means understanding that others' actions might stem from their unique circumstances, fostering understanding rather than approval or condoning.
25 Actionable Insights
1. Set Welcoming Intention
At the beginning of your practice, set an intention to welcome whatever arises with an attitude of openness, as harnessing your imagination in this way is a powerful organizing principle.
2. Regular Attitude Check
Regularly ask yourself, ‘What’s the attitude in the mind right now?’ both in meditation and daily life, to reveal and address underlying mental states that might be controlling you.
3. Choose Acceptance & Coolness
Make a conscious choice to be okay with whatever is happening, cultivating an attitude of being ‘cool with it,’ as this acceptance is transformative and fosters equanimity.
4. Cultivate Inner Space
Practice to develop the capacity to be available to what’s present in a natural, easy way, without fighting it, which creates inner space and a feeling of inner looseness.
5. Investigate Urgency with Curiosity
When a sense of urgency arises, investigate it with curiosity: feel where it is in your body, question why it feels urgent, and stay with it to discover if the urgency truly exists.
6. Allow Yourself to Feel Anger
Give yourself permission to feel anger without acting it out, as suppressing it can lead to increased reactivity in life. Breathe and let the anger ‘sing inside you’ without guilt.
7. Unearth Anger’s Root Causes
Investigate if anger is a compensatory response to underlying feelings of helplessness or vulnerability, which can be unearthed through psychotherapy or meditation insights.
8. Practice “Love No Matter What”
When dealing with anger towards others, use the slogan ’love no matter what’ as a circuit breaker, understanding it as a recognition that others’ actions stem from their circumstances, not as approval of their behavior.
9. Use “Dead End” Slogan
When caught in a loop of unproductive rumination or rage, mentally repeat ‘dead end’ to acknowledge that further thinking won’t help and to change your mental channel.
10. Utilize Slogans for Emotions
Learn and ponder short slogans or mantras that you can drop into your mind when strong emotions arise, as they can spontaneously appear when needed to regulate your state.
11. Cultivate Patience in Meditation
Remember you are not in a rush during meditation and aren’t trying to get to the end, as this patience can significantly shift the feeling tone of the practice.
12. Be Present with Difficulties
Develop the capacity to be fully present with what’s happening, even if it’s injustice or harm, without necessarily liking it or fighting with it.
13. Notice Hidden Mental Contention
Practice helps you notice when you are uptight or in contention with things you weren’t aware of, especially as your mind settles.
14. Remember “I’ll Be Fine”
When facing stress or worry, remind yourself that you will be fine no matter what happens, drawing on the wisdom of non-clinging.
15. Inquire into “Being”
Cultivate a deep curiosity about ‘being’ and the nature of existence, approaching it with excitement and energy, as this is a profound inquiry.
16. Balance Fixation with Gentle Inquiry
If you have a tendency to fixation, balance intense energy with learning to settle in your body and engaging in a more delicate, gentle inquiry into being present, easing fixation with each exhale.
17. Recognize Practice Seasons
Understand that meditation practice has seasons, and feeling forsaken or like your practice isn’t working is a normal, mature stage of growth.
18. Keep Sitting Through Ruts
When your practice feels broken or desolating, continue to sit, using the experience to learn if you can be okay even with that feeling, as this is part of the practice’s true nature.
19. Find Your Unique Practice
Recognize that ‘finding your practice’ is an ongoing process, as your meditation approach will change over time just as you do.
20. Commit to Short Meditations
If your meditation is only 10-15 minutes, commit fully to that duration without distraction, as it’s a manageable commitment.
21. Jot Down Obsessive Thoughts
If a thought is truly obsessive during a longer meditation (e.g., 30 minutes), occasionally write it down to release it, but for shorter sits, commit to staying present.
22. Set Intentions for Presence
Before important interactions or tasks, set an intention for how you want to show up in your body (e.g., ‘spacious, unhurried’) and connect to that feeling, as your body will remember it.
23. Avoid Self-Hostility
Do not bring an attitude of hostility towards yourself or the idea of ‘obliterating the self’ into meditation, as it is counterproductive to the practice.
24. Access States Via Body
Understand that profound or mystical experiences are accessed through engagement with the body and the self, not by trying to obliterate them.
25. Cathartically Express Anger
Explore cathartic ways to express anger, such as through art, screaming in the woods, or using a punching bag, if internal processing isn’t sufficient.
14 Key Quotes
imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow.
Carolyn Casey (quoted by Jeff Warren)
If we're in contention with anything that arrives, that's going to create the tension. That's going to create the problems.
Sebene Selassie
If you don't ask, you won't see it, and when you don't see it, it's owning you.
Dan Harris
Upaka, which is translated as equanimity, and Nibbana, enlightenment, are used interchangeably throughout the polycanon.
Jeff Warren
Non-attachment is one way to talk about it, but another way to talk about it is to get really curious about being, about what is this thing that we're in.
Jeff Warren
part of a mature practice is learning how to feel forsaken in your practice, how to feel like it's not working anymore, it's broken.
Jeff Warren
finding your practice is the practice and that's going to change because we all change.
Sebene Selassie
urgency is a really good thing to work with.
Sebene Selassie
there's nothing to obliterate. It's like trying to kill Santa Claus.
Dan Harris
the only way to get to them is through the body and the self.
Sebene Selassie
the counterpart to anger is like clarity, fierceness, like there's a strength to it.
Jeff Warren
it feels better to be angry than to feel helpless and vulnerable.
Jeff Warren
dead end. I've thought about this enough, no more thinking is going to help. Dead end. Change the channel.
Joseph Goldstein (quoted by Dan Harris)
love no matter what. This does not mean invite the person who's pissing you off over for dinner or condone their behavior, but just to recognize that if you came out of that womb and endured all the same circumstances, you would probably see things exactly the way they're seeing things and maybe do exactly the same thing.
Joseph Goldstein (quoted by Dan Harris)
2 Protocols
Working with Anger in Meditation
Jeff Warren- Breathe and let yourself feel the anger.
- Feel the satisfaction of the power of that anger moving through you without needing it to land anywhere.
- Give yourself permission to be angry without feeling guilty or shame.
- Notice that the more you do this, the less likely it is to come out in other, uncool contexts.
- Alternatively, externalize anger through art, screaming in the woods, or a punching bag.
- Alternatively, explore underlying feelings like helplessness in psychotherapy or through meditation, noticing if anger is a response to vulnerability.
Breaking the Rage Rabbit Hole
Joseph Goldstein (as shared by Dan Harris)- Recognize it's a 'dead end': 'I've thought about this enough, no more thinking is going to help.'
- Change the channel from the obsessive thought.
- Cultivate 'love no matter what': recognize that if you had the same circumstances as the person causing anger, you might see things and act the same way, fostering understanding rather than approval.