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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 or 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 Cavirio

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.

So right now around the globe there are a lot of shadows, a lot of a fears in these

...