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

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Here we go. Great. So hello and welcome everyone to this to this gathering of

happy hour. So, um, So I wanted to share reflections about equanimity, which is the fourth Brahma vihara. There are these four practices of the heart in Buddhism,

the first one being met a loving kindness and we spend a lot of time at happy hour practicing

loving kindness the second one being compassion or karuna the third one being

would it or vicarious joy joy for the joy of others.

And the fourth one, and we do practice all of them,

and the fourth one being equanimity, which sometimes seems perhaps the most subtle of them and folks might even wonder, well why is

equanimity part of these practices of the heart because they all the rest of them the other

three seem warm and caring and equanimity some people misunderstand as as a aloofness or or kind of not

caring or like oh I'm a quantumist it's okay whatever happened so yeah it's how is this one how does it fit with the

other ones and we'll practice it tonight and there's so much to say about equanimity by the way and in fact I'm

teaching a day long on equanimity on Saturday maybe I'll share information

later so there's so much to discover, but just to say here that

equanimity is really the the the birthplace of

Warm kindness compassion because it's really the stability of the heart that is non-reactive

that neither falls into it doesn't get so overly involved and attached or I want you to be well because I want you to be well and I'm so attached to it and I'm going to grieve if you're not well.

So that sense of overwhelm.

And also it doesn't push away, it doesn't turn away

to say, oh, talk to the hand, I not listening or I or push something away with every region.

So equanimity is the sense of equipoise or balance of the heart that allows us to care, to love freely, openly, spatiously, unmovedly,

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