Equanimity and Compassion

[Buddha of Compassion]


Joe Perez has a good post on equanimity. What follows is a slightly edited and expanded version of my response to his post. I'm glad Joe is thinking about this and took the time to post his thoughts. It's an important topic for all of us as the world we live in becomes more and more polarized.


Equanimity is something I struggle with all the time. For what it's worth, thinking about how we respond when our buttons get pushed is the most important act we can take in moving toward equanimity (at least in my experience).

We all have "hot buttons" that get pushed by other people. Most of mine, and I have MANY, revolve around the various forms of intolerance and attempts to restrict individual freedoms to live as we please (providing we are not in any way harming someone else).

What works for me when my buttons get pushed (when I can do it) is to follow the Shambhala path of Chogyam Trungpa. I try to take a step back from the situation and remember that the other person is also a human being who has gone through certain experiences, usually specific kinds of wounding/trauma, that created the worldview they now hold.

If and when I can humanize the person, it becomes much easier not to become reactive in the face of their intolerance. The goal is to feel compassion for whatever experience they have had that makes them so miserable that they have to hold hate for other people in their hearts (even when they don't call it hate). If we feel compassion for our enemies, they have no power to push our buttons.

Now this does not mean we do not act to change their hearts and minds. The Shambhala path requires us to work for the enlightenment of all sentient beings, so doing nothing is never an option. But we are much more likely to create allies with compassion than we are with anger. Maybe we can't change their hearts, but we will have acted with integrity and the tender heart of the warrior (as Trungpa calls it).

I agree with what Joe says about the progression of history toward greater depth and span, greater freedom and compassion (my words, I guess, not his).

The challenge for a liberal spirituality is to locate Spirit in the right place: in the midst of the evolution of nature and culture, in the thick of multicultural diversity, as the ground for liberal freedoms and all authentic liberation.

Equanimity is the act of aligning ourselves with that movement of Spirit, that drive, the Eros of evolution. When we are aligned with Eros, when we feel compassion for all beings, when we are no longer attached to the pettiness of ego, we are free in the truest sense of the word.

That is my sense of equanimity.

If we hope to be great, in any sense, we must do it with tender, open hearts. And we must do it together, with compassion, aligned with Spirit.

Easier said than done, but that is why we have this lifetime to work at getting it right.