Upekkha
I woke up this morning embroiled in a mind story on the virtue of equanimity (Upekkha). A sentient sage recently told me about his awakening while on a road trip — the 21st century equivalent of walking the path I suspect. As I listened to his heart open into an amazing space of acceptance and gratitude I could hear the whispers of my early vipassna practice and the equanimity that we try to cultivate that can shelter us against the eight worldly winds — gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute.
There is such freedom in the moment when we see that our circumstances do not dictate our happiness and that lightening of the burden of our human nature was apparent in his telling of the satori. “It won’t matter on your wedding day” he said, or something to that affect. I have since learned it is a fairly common expression that has some relevance to time heals all wounds, however my mind at the moment was thinking about the dozen episodes of Poor Bride, Rich Bride my college girl watched this past weekend and the mayhem and commercialism that now passes for normal. As I come from a very long line of JOP services in my family of origin (some shotgun some voluntary) the modern day wedding performance is a mystery to me. Hmmmm …. gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute — yep that pretty much sums up my sense of “the big day”.
While the virtue of equanimity is clear in my mind, the aperture of my heart is only open on rare occasion to glimpse the majesty of its presence. And this morning as I woke already in pain and high agitation there would be no Upekkha (equanimity) for my situation and suffering.
“Pain IS worse than Pain-free!” I attested in my mental story. “And Peace IS better than Non-Peace!!”
It was that kind of energy. I opened the door to my closet and walked in to get a shawl for my shoulders. I had spent some significant time the day before on the floor cleaning and organizing my closet and as I stood there looking at the wide open uncluttered space I continued my silent rant “A CLEAN CLOSET IS BETTER THAN A MESSY CLOSET!”
I was cold. There was a chill in the house from recent rain and unusual damp weather. I pulled a small space heater and sat on the floor of a downstairs bedroom with a ballpeen hammer and screwdriver and began banging the hell out of some cheap vinyl tile that was not giving up without a fight. (We are making a conservative effort to remove high VOC materials are replace them with zero volatile compounds and eco-friendly options.) Sometimes only a sliver of the tile would come up and at other times a large chunk would peel away from the cement sub floor. The commentary continued “Large easy strips ARE better than tiny bits of scraps! Easy is better than hard!!”
No sign of equanimity on the horizon.
I put a load of clothes in the wash so that I could put them up on the line before the rains would come again. When they finished their cycle I sorted the wet garments into piles inside the house to minimize my time in the cold air outdoors. I made stacks of pants, shirts and pajamas, his, hers and other (kids qualify as other don’t they?) and I carried each one at a time outside into the overcast low pressure system. With my arms bundled around a heavy group of pajamas I thought to myself “Lighter loads are BETTER than heavier loads to carry!” and I hoisted the stack up on to a high rope that was strung between a palm tree and an old wooden structure that had once been a swing/play set for children (back in the day when children played out of doors instead of in front of Pet Society on Facebook.)
As I began to drag the wet clothes across the line a gentle breeze caught my attention and at once I was present to the birds that were chirping in a nearby yet dormant crepe myrtle.
Something had shifted.
As I walked back inside and picked up the next load of wet shirts and pressed them close to my body to carry them to the line it occurred to me that it really didn’t matter to the birds if I was hauling a heavy or light load. Moreover the presence of the birds did not change for me depending on the weight of the laundry. Yes, heavy clothes felt harder to bear than lighter clothes … but there was a world around me that was full of awe and movement that was the same regardless of my particular point of reference.
I could enjoy the light loads, I could feel good about an uncluttered closet, I would certainly feel the moments of no-pain as infinitely more pleasurable … but all the same none of it mattered to the bird song in the backyard. That song was available to me too regardless of what mental story might try to challenge it.
I stood back to watch the winds blow my laundry on the line … gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, fame and disrepute … and the birds in the tree singing a song of equanimity.
