Hello and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we are getting a little better at life.

I'm your host, Corey Muscarra, and today we're going to be talking about equanimity.

To begin, let's listen to the bells to help us settle in. I first learned about the concept of equanimity through my studies in Burma,

although the idea of equanimity and what is pointing to can be found in many different traditions.

Some of the best articulations of it and how to cultivate it do come from the Buddhist tradition.

And what equanimity is pointing to

is a deep groundedness and balance of mind

that is not disturbed by the highs and lows of internal or external experiences.

From a layperson's perspective, we might understand this as just simply being balanced, But from a contemplative perspective, a meditator's perspective, this is

actually a profound mind state that can be cultivated over time.

So I want to address both.

The depth of what equanimity can be and what's possible

as a mind state to be achieved, and also how we might experience it in our moment to moment life and why it would be

powerful or even profound in many ways. So let's start where many of my stories start in Burma.

When I went to Burma I did not really know what to expect.

I just knew that I was going to be meditating many hours per day, eating very little, and not speaking.

I had an agenda to cultivate a quality of peace that could exist, I don't want to say independent of external conditions, but much less dependent on external conditions.

And that came with a felt sense of what I wanted to achieve.

There was a sense in my mind and my body of what I would feel like once I get wherever there was.

Because of that, many of the experiences I had throughout that extended retreat

were filtered through a lens of, does this match up with what I want or does it not

match up so how did that look well in the beginning I dealt with a lot of pain, and any time physical pain would arise, my

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