Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference.

To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends. Today we're on the fourth week of a series of heart reflections.

We've explored loving kindness and compassion and joy.

And this one's on equanimity. And people often wonder how did equanimity get grouped together

with the other domains of heart. And it helps to consider what it is that blocks or closes our heart.

In any moment that we're wanting life to be different, that we feel like life's not going

our way. Let's say our body hurts or we feel in some way offended or criticized by someone

we're anxious about what's around the corner

or we feel like maybe we failed at something. In those moments, it's difficult to connect with

and feel our natural caring and love and tenderness of heart. So equanimity is the space of awareness that can allow life

to be just as it is. So when we're feeling equanimity, life can be unpleasant, life can be

difficult, and there's still enough space, still enough awareness, enough balance and openness to hold

what is arising with care. And that is freedom. That's freedom. I'll share with you a poem from

the poet Kaviri that gives us a sense of this and it's called equanimity. There is a canyon of painted

rocks where the sun always rises, where the sun always sets. Sometimes the cliffs are covered in

snow, sometimes they're wet with rain, sometimes wildflowers grow in the dry crevices.

Sometimes I keep company with family and friends.

Sometimes I feel lonely among familiar strangers.

Sometimes I'm alone.

Sometimes the sun rises and sets inside my own heart

as I disappear into painted rocks

and silence, becoming the space for life to occur.

...