The Equanimity Paradox

I am equanimous of not being equanimous.

This seemingly popular mantra started as a joke from my two wonderful friends four months ago. They coined the phrase after surpassing a challenging ten-day silent meditation retreat all of us attended. The phrase was inspired by equanimity, one of the buzzwords in this yearly retreat among old and new participants. They have not just learned the word, but it has become a struggling experience. There is such a subtle impact that makes this word characteristically enigmatic, something that renders it quicksilver in every meditative process. Equanimity is such a dream of hearts who wanted to achieve peace through meditation. They want its adjective - equanimous - to define their experience. But Equanimity remains both mysterious and banal.

How does one experience equanimity? In a series of one-hour meditations, one is encouraged to be aware of the bodily pains, from a simple itch to recurring leg spasms and back pain. Along with these pains are the streams of negative thoughts distracting one's attention towards concentrated awareness. Our minds are oftentimes untamed, and during meditation, patiently narrowing one's focus without reacting against distractions is a challenging feat. Reaching this point of patience amid the unpredictable flow of mental and physical changes is the goal of equanimity.

Equanimity originally means "balanced spirit." Meditation is actually a tool wherein this experience can be achieved. In the meditative context, a meditator trains one's consciousness by being mindful of whatever changes that occur, especially those pains that one rejects, and cravings that one often fantasizes. One learns to balanced the spirit, to radically accept whatever is occurring without vehement repulsion or delusion.

Beyond sitting, we live our lives every day full of unexpected tribulations. We deal with our jobs and workplaces, with our families and friends, with global events that affect our lives. These occurrences are always inevitable, proving the existence of suffering. And we often live by reacting to them automatically through the easiest of reactions: irritation, disgust, contempt and anger. We often fight back, believing that through forceful actions we can change any circumstances that threaten us one way or another. Or we often retract with indifference and fear, fleeing from these dangers to our survival, and distrusting even the minute shifts of our everyday encounters. This psychological conditioning has downgraded us into nothing but a knee-jerk living, one that reduces our consciousness into automatic fear-based reactions. We have created our realities into limited space for soulful growth and adventure. Those external circumstances that rule our lives are similar to the difficult pains we face during sitting meditations. As we refine equanimous awareness, there is a kind of transference that happens from sitting to everyday life, wherein we can apply and test our attitude in response to the fickle vicissitudes of life.

The Equanimity Paradox has no rhetorical wordplay. Even though it started as a joke, I have seen an in-depth truth on experiencing the same paradoxical reality. The end of sitting meditation is the beginning of realizing equanimity. Oftentimes, a transpired truth inflicts a stabbing pain. For we know that there is benefit in equanimity, but knowing that we still frantically react towards changes is likened to holding an ember even though we know it might burn us. Even so, we become more agitated, because we thought that knowing equanimity means achieving it. We are so deluded that our mind has tricked us; we react more and more, blaming ourselves and external factors for the failure of not being equanimous.

From here, we begin the true experience of equanimity: transcending our awareness from knowing to experiencing. We can now experience our unwanted agitations, and we can see, through equanimous eyes, our spirits running amok . We witness ourselves that we are still impatient and reactive, blowing up like we have never done before. We see ourselves not equanimous, and we begin to accept that we haven't achieved equanimity. Despite the illusion of knowing more than experiencing, our acknowledgment of this weakness unfolds the power of this paradox: this is the achievement of equanimity.


Being equanimous of not being equanimous can be easily dismissed as an illogical concept; nevertheless, its experiential truth is always at hand. Suppose you react angrily towards a difficult person in your life. Anger roars from your core like an erupting volcano. You feel this apparently powerful thought of revenge, and within one stroke of your fiery hand you can bring harm to that person. After this tension, you will come to your senses and excuse yourself that you do not mean any harm. But every move you have done is now irreversible. This incidence is a demonstration of the absence of equanimity.

Let's say the same incident happens, yet this time it would be different. You want to do harm against the other, and yet you think that any action against your enemy might cause you trouble. Your energies are welling up and you hate yourself for feeling it, though you still keep your composure not to retaliate. You love the thought of being patient but this very moment patience eludes you. You find yourself a failure for being impatient, still reacting inwardly with anger, even if not outwardly. This very moment you have born equanimity in mind. Albeit raw on this circumstance, choosing not to harm and letting go of the situation is a seed of equanimity you begin to sow in your awareness. This is a perfect example of the Equanimity Paradox.

The Equanimity Paradox is a beginning, wherein all of us can see ourselves evolving with equanimous awareness. This is not failure of being equanimous. Rather, this is the impetus, from which we can expand our equanimity. Embodying the wisdom of a famous Japanese proverb Fall seven times, stand up eight, we might fall on not being equanimous at times when we badly need equanimity, but they are in fact the perfect opportunity to give birth to our equanimity. Finding ourselves not being equanimous is literally a preparation - or rather, a proof - that we have been living equanimity. We are equanimity, a truth we discover that we always are.