“I heard in Baldwin’s words the emphasis on holding two opposing ideas: accepting the existence of injustice and fighting to vanquish it. I heard, too, the clarion call that equanimity is my “charge,” my responsibility. That it means keeping my own heart steady, free, and open.” ~Daisy Hernandez, in “The Noble Abode of Equanimity”
Does your reading and meditation ever disturb you? Each day I start with a spiritual reading, looking for the focus of my meditation and sitting. On this day, I find myself deeply disturbed. My reading, instead of helping me find my way to bliss, asked me to go deep into the heart of all that disturbs me with this world of ours.
Often, to escape what is so uncomfortable to me in this world, I choose to turn off the TV. I limit what I let into my peaceful world. I am well enough aware, but to control my anxiety, I let only enough in so that I can choose my actions in a way to maintain a firm grasp on my reality.
My reading this morning grasped me by the shoulders, pulled me up and plunged me down into all that is most uncomfortable for me to confront: my neighbors with opposing political viewpoints; people in stores who can tell by my actions, my dress and my comments that I oppose their views and who choose deliberately to bait me; difficulties I have with the coming elections in choosing where I will stand, what I will do to walk with my values in facing that there are no “right” answers.
The author spoke spiritually and honestly about her own struggles, calling me to my own. But, she added one piece that helped me enormously as I sat with my own discomfort: the reality of paradox. How do I sit with the reality that I, like all of us if we are honest, acknowledge that I am not only one side? I am a prism, made up of many opposing and reflecting edges.
I am the mother of children, each with such varied and beautifully different personalities and needs, who show me the many differing needs of all the rainbows of persons in the world. How did these unique individuals come to be related to me?
I am myself a myriad of different talents and gifts, each with different features and shadows. Some are very good, and some can be very dark, even evil, if I don’t have help to harness them. What would I do without your help?
I cannot survive with you and you without me. We have a love/hate relationship around this. The danger is when we shrink this to black and white, either/or, all or nothing.
This wonderful word, EQUANIMITY, that was raised to my awareness this morning, the great balancer. It opened my heart. Hernandez said, “I sensed in my body a kind of anchoring, a settling in, a sense of I see this, even this, and I felt strong, too. It’s odd to say that I felt both soft and strong at the same time, but I did. I also felt renewed.”
As I sat meditating on equanimity this morning, I felt this opening. I felt the necessity of it. It was not a head thing. It was coming from my heart. The world desperately needs the openness of heart.
Can you open your heart?