The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at adioderma.org.

Hi, everyone.

So I'm happy to hear that the topic for the mindful parenting group is equanimity.

That is also my topic.

Completely unplanned. We did not coordinate this.

Hmm.

Yeah, the topic of equanimity, sometimes in these conversations I'm having with people these days, there's a question, how do I cultivate equanimity with the world as it is right now? How do I cultivate equanimity with things as they are, with the world as it is right now. How do I

cultivate that equanimity? And then there also might be the question, do I want to

cultivate equanimity? So I want to talk to that today.

Talk a little about what equanimity is, what it isn't, and maybe offer a slightly different perspective on equanimity

that may shift your thinking about,

hopefully maybe shift your thinking about, do maybe shift your thinking about do I want to cultivate

equanimity right now. So the quality of equanimity, one of the words, the polywords upekapeka, often translated as equanimity.

There's a lot of words that we use in,

maybe kind of synonymously with that.

So, you know, equanimity isn't a word

that's frequently used in our everyday life,

but words like allowing, accepting, balance of mind, non-reactivity,

non-conflict, those are words that can evoke some of the quality of equanimity.

Joseph Goldstein brings in the phrase impartiality, not towards or against anything.

And so some of those words kind of have the sense of, like, accepting, allowing.

...