Bob: Well, we’ll figure it out one of these days. Anyway, we’re gonna start the teaching here, so nice to have you back with us.

It’s one of those things. This is how it is. And that’s tonight’s topic, actually. We’ve been doing a series on the ten pāramīs, or perfections. And they’re not really something we need to perfect in the sense of ever fully arriving. But this one is upekkhā, or equanimity. I actually prefer just saying upekkhā because it’s a little easier than equanimity, which sounds—well, corporate somehow to me. But I really love the word “equanimous.” I love the sound of it. I always feel like it’s an Australian marsupial or something. “Yeah, I ranch equanimous.” That’d be the plural.

All right. Let’s just take a nice deep breath and settle in after all of that fun with tech.

When we go through these, it always seems like they’re sort of superhuman. You know, we talk about, “Oh, these are the ten perfections the Buddha had,” and they sound totally unachievable. But truthfully, all of them are pretty much totally ordinary. And that’s one of the things I love about it.

If we actually examine our day, a lot of our day is spent just being okay with the way it is at the moment. Other parts of our day, not so much. But on the whole, the state of equanimity—the state of upekkhā—is ordinary. It’s not some… I mean, yes, you can get into jhāna states where equanimity is present—I think it’s the fourth jhāna, deep concentration and all of that. But in truth, it’s a totally ordinary state that we can find if we can simply be: “This is how it is.” As Amy said, just in this moment, this is how it is.

And I love to talk about generosity, and it’s generous of you all to be here tonight. I bring this up a lot: it was the first teaching of the Buddha to his students—generosity. But this is generosity to ourselves in upekkhā, just letting life be as it is in this moment. We don’t need to change it. We don’t need to hold onto it.

And this doesn’t mean indifference. This is not, “Oh my gosh, the world’s terrible and I’m just okay,” or, “Everything’s wonderful but it doesn’t enthuse me.” That isn’t what it is. It’s just being okay with whatever’s happening. “I can bear this.” If it’s bad, I can be with just this moment. I don’t have to hold onto what’s going on. I don’t have to push it away.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work for change. It’s not accepting the world as it is in order to not change it. It’s accepting that the world is as it is in this moment, and allowing ourselves to do better because we’re making rational decisions instead of being all worked up because “I can’t be with this.” It’s like, wait a minute—I can be with this. What can I do to make it better?

Or if there’s something joyful going on—well, I don’t know about you, but I often think, “Oh my gosh, this is going to end. I’m having this great day, but I have to go to work tomorrow.” That’s the same thing as going, “Oh my gosh, this thing is terrible.” It’s all the same wind. How can I just be in this moment and give ourselves that gift of generosity?

I like to tie this one back to one of the Buddhist teachings. I’m terrible at Pāli words, but I’ll give it a try anyway. It’s from the Lokavipatti Sutta, or the Eight Worldly Winds. Because this is usually what’s going on in my head—pulling me in this direction and that direction. The weather patterns in our head. And I don’t know about you, but I want a little relief from them. It’s not something that works for me all the time.

So this is what it says:

Gain and loss, fame and disgrace, blame and praise, pleasure and pain—

These are qualities among humankind. These qualities are impermanent, transient, perishable. An intelligent and mindful person knows these things. Seeing that they’re perishable, desirable things don’t disturb the mind, nor are they repelled by the undesirable. Both favoring and opposing are cleared and disappear. They are no more. Knowing the stainless, sorrowless state, those who have gone beyond rebirth understand rightly.

For me, that sounds really lofty. “Oh gosh, I wish I could do that.” But what it really means is: if I can just be present in this moment, I don’t have to worry about fame and gain. I don’t have to worry about all of these winds blowing through my head all the time.

And again, that doesn’t mean, “I’m just going to give up and not try to make the world a better place.” And it doesn’t mean, “I need to not be happy and joyous in this moment.” What it means is just being present in that moment and not holding onto it. Not pushing it away. Not grabbing it.

And this is where, for me, the ordinariness of it is a doorway. Because the winds don’t blow just in dramatic moments. They blow when the email comes in. I’m in a really busy period at work right now, and if I let that get to me, I’d be nuts all day.

When the body does something creaky and uncooperative—and my body… I turned 68 over the weekend. My body does creaky and uncomfortable things rather regularly. And one of our sangha members, unfortunately, is in the hospital tonight because he has a creaky body. We might send a little mettā to him later in our practice.

And when someone praises me—oh, I get all like, “Oh, I’m wonderful.” And when someone… actually, not even that. Usually I go, “No, I’m not.” When one person out of a hundred says, “Yeah, I didn’t care for that,” that’s the one I focus on. Not the other ninety-nine. I’m good with the ninety-nine—“Oh yeah, Bob’s great.” But the other guy who said, “Eh”—he’s the one I’ll remember.

None of that has to happen if I can simply go, “This is how it is. This is the way it is.” I love that phrase. And we use it—I use it—a lot here.

The Ryōkan haiku: “The thief left it behind: the moon in the window.” Because that is just allowing things to be as they are. That is recognizing that the Dhamma, represented by the moon, is still present. The thief could take everything, and I can still be in this moment because I still have this. I still have the moon.

Mary Oliver is sort of the patron saint of meditators—the poet laureate of meditators. She has a poem that really strikes me and really describes what my mind is like. It’s called “I Worried.”

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow? Will the rivers flow in the right direction? Will the earth turn as it was taught? And if not, how shall I correct it? Was I right? Was I wrong? Will I be forgiven? Can I do better? Will I ever be able to sing? Even the sparrows can do it, and I am—well—hopeless. Is my eyesight fading, or am I just imagining it? Am I going to get rheumatism? Lockjaw? Dementia? Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing, and I gave it up. I took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.

I like the singing. I like being present just in this moment. Those are the moments where the world sings in a way. Yes, there’s pain. Yes, there’s joy. Yes, I can be present for both. And I can accept it. And I don’t have to have these winds blowing through my head all the time if I can simply practice.

For me, that’s what upekkhā is. It’s not some grand state. I know many people use the Thich Nhat Hanh story of the Vietnamese people who left on boats and were in storms, and if one person could be equanimous—if they could have upekkhā—they would be saved. I’m not saving anybody but me, and it’s only in this moment.

Now, I agree with that story: if there is one person who can keep their head, things will be a lot better. But for me it’s like this morning—I spilled coffee. And I’m like, “Okay. This is how it is.” And I didn’t have to get upset about it. That’s upekkhā to me, in the ordinary moments of life.

The other one that comes to me is long-distance bicycling. I like to bike across the state or down the Oregon coast. Usually you have a motel reservation seventy miles away, so you’re going to bike all day to get to this place, and then do it again tomorrow.

Usually in the morning it’s beautiful. You get out there. About halfway through the ride you’re thinking, “Why the hell did I do this?” And you’re too far to turn back. You’re not there yet. So what do you do?

That’s when the practice of “This is how it is” is really helpful. Because all you do is put one foot in front of the other and keep pedaling. “Okay. This is the way it is. My kamma, my decisions, have led to this moment.” And sometimes there are options—you can thumb a ride, I suppose. But here I am. And if I can allow myself to do that, the ride becomes beautiful. And I can finish the ride.

So the Mary Oliver poem and the biking—we don’t need the winds to stop. They’re going to keep blowing. Just like, hopefully, that siren is just somebody wanting to get through the intersection quickly and nobody hurt. It’s going to be what it’s going to be. And that’s the acceptance level I try for.

And the thing is: you already know how to do this. Because I’m going to bet, without really paying attention, you do it thousands of times a day. Really what we’re doing when we think of practicing this is simply recognizing that this is how it is in this moment.