Yesterday I went to a one day Vipassana retreat, a kind of booster shot for the 10 day course I took in September. Once again I was immersed in the power of equanimity.
Equanimity used to seem to me the dullest of the four qualities. Intellectually I could accept that it was important, but who chooses equanimity over the more visceral sounding immeasurables like compassion, lovingkindness, and joy? But more and more every year I see how none of those qualities can thrive without the underlying force field of mental stability.
Throughout this journey, from my first experiments with standing, to my sustained weeks of sitting, everything has been about testing and believing in the power of stability, stillness, unflinching balance.
For a long time I thought that balance meant never losing your footing, but I'm coming to understand that it means building and maintaining the ability to regain your footing. Equanimity isn't just sitting still, although sitting still certainly helps. It's also about being able to surf the waves of intensity, it's about the emotional and mental agility of non-duality, of liberating the mind from its constant self consciousness.
Above all it's about the strength and courage to sit with the hostility, the cravings, the inner habits from another time that risk de-stabilizing us.
Protect the dharma, says Goenka, and the dharma will protect you.
