Equanimity: An Invisible Inheritance

Gratitude isn’t merely an extra, an outflow of meditation. The deep peace of meditation gushes up from the realization that an infinite series of events have crystallized into this moment of equanimity in me. A long history, on many stages, with a changing, numerous cast, is contained within this moment’s peace. My peace in this or any moment is the principle of peace, guided, purified, manifesting now in me. Any individual’s equanimity is a product of the same laws of peace, whose shafts enter and illuminate us. All peace is an inheritance; every moment of equanimity glows from the same invisible gift. [...]

Every future –- next minute, next year, next eon -– will itself be only a present that will change into something else. The realization within yourself, through direct awareness of sensations, of the fluidity and impermanence of every particle of your being, and of the universe itself, eradicates all fantasies. Instead, insight into this truth leads you into the present moment, immediate and unadorned, which changes.

To the extent that I can cultivate and maintain this awareness, I feel liberated and I’m living the truth, which is peace. In that moment, I am free from fear, free from yearning, purified of myself. There is the simple truth of the moment, changing into the next moment, in infinite series, forever. There are no ideas, no constrictions, no knowledge in absolute truth, which has no final form. In such a moment, a person is a solution through which truth and peace pass. [...]

Initially we seek peace for personal, self-serving reasons. This is only sane: we want to suffer less. As we find more peace in our hearts – even though it is intermittent, even though so much of our lives remains a struggle within the illusory drama of our selves, even though our purity is partial ... our goals change. Ultimately, the goal isn’t to contain peace but to transmit it, isn’t to have peace but to Be peace. The goal of the peaceful life is to be a vehicle of love, compassion, joy, and peace, not directed at any single target, without any circumference, just flowing out and penetrating whatever it encounters.

--Paul Fleischman