It goes like this:
Resiliency + Perspective-Taking + Faith = Equanimity.
I know this is not rocket-science or quantum physics, but it is tough, for me anyway.
And truth be told, my little formula was propelled forward in a big way this past weekend in a very unlikely place: the drive-in movie theater.
One of my favorite summertime activities is to go to the drive-in to watch a movie. Though now few and far between in the United States, I’m lucky to have a drive-in movie theater about 30 minutes from my house, and we like to go there at least once a year.
This past weekend I took my son and his friend.
And we did it right.
We drove in our truck, put chairs and blankets in the back, and ate tons of popcorn while listening to the movie over the car radio and glancing up every now again to the billions and billions of stars in the night sky.
This weekend the movie that was playing was the newest Ice Agemovie- an animated series of movies (I think there are like 5 now) about a Mammoth, a Saber Tooth Tiger and a Sloth who join forces to make an unlikely herd and family in the time of the Ice Age.
The movie itself was utterly ridiculous, but during the movie, while I was sitting back underneath the likes of The Big Dipper, Cassiopeiaand quite possibly the planet Mars (or at least we all agreed it was a star that looked very red!), I had this interesting awareness of the juxtaposition between history (this long, long ago period of time we call the Ice Age), perspective-taking (the vast breath of the galaxy before my eyes), and the 19th Century quote by Abolitionist and Unitarian Theodore Parker about the moral arc of the universe:
I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.
(A quote made famous by theReverend Dr. Martin Luther King when he declared in many a speech including the 1965 March from Selma, Alabama: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.)
What a moment this was…with all the stars aligning (pun intended!).
I felt like saying out loud: “Ohhhhh, now I get it…”
I had been aspiring to cultivate equanimity through sheer Intention + Meditation Practice alone, and I had thought that my increased capacity and skill to soothe myself, and “rapidly recover from adversity” asDr. Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin defined resiliency in his Ted Talk at Wisdom 2.0 called “Well-being is a Skill,” was really all I needed to improve my ability to recalibrate my own equilibrium. But even with all this efforting (one of my favorite words), my progress seemed slower than a snail.
Now, I see where I was wrong.
Well, maybe not wrong, but misinformed.
For me, resiliency alone will not yield equanimity. No, equanimity requires more support.
Last week I wrote a blog entry called “The Stress Response & Political Divides.” I suggested that there is evidence (albeit anecdotal) that this2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign Season is igniting the Fight-Flight-Freeze alarm system in the Central Nervous System of the American people- myself included.
But this past weekend, sitting there underneath a whole universe of solar systems and galaxies, watching this outlandish film supposedly set in prehistoric times, I couldn’t help butregain my sense of perspective by remembering how very small I amand how very short a period of time 4 years actually is within the context of the history of the world.
Then, when I combined thisperspective with the classical words of hope and faith—the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice—resiliency all of the sudden had so much more weight. In fact, I would say, that is the very moment when Resiliency + Perspective-Taking + Faith came to equal Equanimity.
It was a beautiful A-ha moment for me.
How do you nurture equanimity?
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