Equanimity is the most precious resource that I have.
Even six months ago, I don't think I would have understood that. Equanimity has always seemed something neutral, dull, baseline. It's only very recently that I've understood its true power.
To have sanity, the ability to care about ourselves and others, to feed ourselves enough, but not too much. To exercise our bodies when we'd rather sit on the couch and have our feelings mediated through the television, these are things that are essential riches, but it's rare that we see them that way.
Equanimity is the power that grows slowly and surely through attention to these basic things. It keeps the anger and obsessions in check. It allows compassion to trump envy and it allows for sympathetic joy towards people I would normally feel alienated from.
I've had a very emotional weekend re-connecting with an old friend who is in a lot of pain. My hope is that I can build and use this equanimity that I've been cultivating to help both of us.
I had a good insight yesterday while I was running. I often think of energy as something inside me, something I might not have enough of to make it through a run. But energy isn't inside us. It's all around us. We have the mechanism to convert that energy for ourselves and others. What we build when we run, when we love, when we connect with our bodies and others and the world, is the capacity to use that energy.
Whether we're able to take advantage of that comes down to belief.
Belief and commitment to that belief. That we have enough, that we will always have enough, food, housing, time, money to take care of ourselves and others.
This is how we generate a decent world for ourselves and everyone.
