Wangapeka Study and Retreat Centre
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Letter from the Buddhadharma: Equanimity
Dawa Rowley stayed on at the Wangapeka after the 2005 Buddhadharma Program, and is currently acting as Caretaker. A couple of weeks ago she wrote a letter with her thoughts on equanimity.
My immediate reaction to reading it was to say 'oh yes' and 'oh I've also been thinking of that, and ... it's different for me ... and what do you think about ...'
... and from this seed an idea grew - it'd be really interesting (and educational also) to collect observations from a few different people on the topic of equanimity and put them on the website and the Newsphere. Who knows, it may even become a regular feature - the paramis, sangha, emptiness etc - the concepts are endless!
Would you like to respond/contribute something towards this topic (or suggest another)? It could be in any form - prose, poetry, painting - short, long? Nothing fancy, just a little something off the top of your head that gives the flavour of this slippery mind-state for you! Please spread the word if you think there may be someone else interested!
Thelma Rodgers webmaster@wangapeka.org
To start the ball rolling here is Dawa's letter:
Dear Thelma - I wonder how life has been treating you?
I've been flourishing. When Sue left, I took over the office for a bit, as you know. Much to my amazement I just LOVE the office work. And I already knew I enjoy helping people, so managing Bonni Ross's retreat this week has been a real pleasure. Sue did a fabulous job looking after the vege garden, and it has been resting (except for the miners lettuce) over the colder months. It is ready to take off again, so got a stash of books from the library about organic gardens (not that you need a book to tell you to plant things when it gets warmer and that you don't need miners lettuce EVERYWHERE (man that stuff is persistent - a sort of salad version of Mike's Burmese cat - did you meet her? He's in retreat in Skydancer Hut at the moment and she is crazy for attention).
I've had a bit of a revelation this week. I think I may have finally got the difference between 'Calm' and 'Equanimity' (a la 'Seven Factors of Enlightenment'). That's a subtlety I've never been able to get before. But recently, with the stress of doing heaps of new responsible stuff with other people's money, not to mention buying a car that crapped out before I'd finished paying for it at the same time one of my hearing aids costing over a hundred dollars to repair - I discovered a VERY interesting thing. (No, not that I've got a block about money - that is an old and boring thing, and it's changing anyway).
I was feeling really agitated and nervous on the surface, but when I looked closer there was definitely a base line of stability. Partly the sense of curiosity about how this struggle with money pattern was showing up again when I thought I'd conquered the it, but also something else. Despite the agitation and nervousness (that's not new for this being, is it?) there was something definitely different.
When I really looked into it I decided it might be Equanimity. It didn't mean not feeling nervous, but it did mean not freaking out. And it did mean totally being able to be there for others arriving here for their first retreat and needing support and, more importantly, being totally there for the agitation. Not swept away, not repressing, but just acknowledging 'with kindness and interest'. When I looked even closer, I think the thing I saw that was different was a certain lack of judgment. Not a lack of discrimination, but lack of 'this is bad'. It was able to be unpleasant without flipping into a story, or a spiral of self-doubt. Do you know what I'm getting at? - a sort of neutral Feeling underneath the agitated Mindstate. (a la 'Four Foundations of Mindfulness'). It feels like progress. Really strengthening.
Anyway, I'd love to hear how the world has been treating you and what you've been up to.
Take care,
Looking forward to seeing you again,
Dawa
Sarva Managalam - All is Blessing