Good morning. So good to be here with all of you, Anna. Today we're celebrating the full moon and the Bodhisattva ceremony, and it's the beginning of the month, and it's a beautiful day. And there are a lot of people here, and it's just really wonderful. And hello to everyone online. So first I want to say that this afternoon we're having a very special ceremony for Sue Osher, a lay entrustment ceremony. And it will, it's... with her teacher, Ryushin Andrea Thatch, who is giving her lay entrustment.

[01:05]

And this ceremony is really to recognize and honor Sue's depth of practice over many years, her ongoing care and service to the temple, and her gifts as a teacher. So it's similar in some ways to dharma transmission, But as a layperson, she's not giving the precepts. So this is honoring the teaching side of this recognition of just where a person is in their practice and their maturity in practice. So that'll be this afternoon. Ryushin will say more about the ceremony and the meaning of it and the forms of it at that time. So if you'd like to come, everyone is welcome. Please be there at around 2.45, because ceremony starts promptly at 3. so everyone can get in and sit down. So one of the things that I've been practicing with a lot lately is that there's been a lot of change in recent months, including we started going up to Enso Village every week a couple of weeks ago.

[02:16]

I've been really practicing with regulating my life. So that's been on my mind and in my body a lot, finding balance throughout many new things and comings and goings not to mention all that's happening in the world and with the people around me, us it just feels like things are getting faster so I wanted to talk today about a particular form of practicing with regulation, which is equanimity. And that's the fourth of the four Brahma Viharas, which is where many of us may be familiar with it from. But there's a few things I want to say before I get into that.

[03:18]

I think it needs a little... Love and kindness is relatively straightforward as a concept, and so is compassion. Equanimity is... as I've gotten more into it, turns out to be a little more complex. I also wanted to mention that, you know, one of the translations, a modern translation of dukkha, of suffering, you know, as in the Four Noble Truths, there is suffering, this exists, as stress. So dukkha as stress, which... And I think I may have mentioned this before because stress may be positive or negative. The concept of stress is relatively neutral, although we usually hear it as, or it can be, it can mean both. But what I found really interesting is that in studying stress, positive events and negative events are both stressful because they're change. It represents impermanence. So joyful events can be...

[04:22]

stressful, especially if you have to prepare for them, like getting married. And they're less stressful than the corresponding getting divorced, but not by as much as you'd think. Think about people you know who have been close to weddings. You can relate to stress, I would imagine. So much stuff comes up around change. So much... So much stuff internally, and then there's just all the details of trying to... So we're starting to go back and forth between two places, and it's like, is this here or there? What do I need? Oh, I don't have it. Yeah, that's been very interesting. And once I got that this was going to happen, and this was not... any longer surprising that this was happening. That part of it calmed down. It was just like, how am I going to deal with not having towels at this moment?

[05:25]

Rags. Excellent. Excellent substitution. So impermanence change is one of the three marks of existence. In other words, it characterizes everything. Everything changes. Some things far more slowly or far more quickly than others. But we feel the ones that happen in a period of time that really affects us. We know that mountains change as well. We can look around and see how they're worn down or whatever, but it's the sudden things that get us, the unexpected things. So there... There are probably an infinite number of ways to regulate our bodies and minds, different ways to calm, find peace, ease, or at least greater calm and ease in our bodies and minds.

[06:37]

Some are healthier than others. Some are downright unhealthy. Some are very healthy. But in the Dharma, we're talking about a set of things that are a loose collection, I should say, of different ways to regulate our bodies and minds that are particularly supportive for practice. They all have that particular quality, is that they're about supporting the practice. And it's really helpful, even just when you think about sitting zazen, to be... able to focus the mind and to sit still and to be somewhat comfortable in the body, comfortable enough, settled enough in the mind, and that it's just very difficult to focus if there's a lot of agitation in the mind and body. So these ways of turning the temperature down enough to

[07:46]

Be in that kind of middle zone where things are workable. That is so much part of what the Buddha taught, is how can things be workable for us? How can we get things into a place where we can meet them? How we can meet whatever arises, as Rev. Anderson used to say, with complete relaxation. Meet whatever arises with complete relaxation. That was a thing he was saying a lot during a practice period. that I did at Tassajara, so I heard it a lot. And I kept thinking, oh, that's such nice work if you can get it. But how? How do you do that? And there's a lot of great stuff online about nervous system regulation and all of that. But just the basic practices that we do, like breathing and counting the breaths and all of these things, there's just so much... resonance there because it's just human bodies that we're talking about, human bodies and human minds.

[08:51]

And our surroundings have changed dramatically in the last 2,500 years, but our minds and bodies, not that much. So many of the instructions are still so useful to us. But some of the instructions are quite specific. for place and time and people, as the Buddha throughout his lifetime was continually tailoring what he was saying, the teachings he was offering to the person or the group that he was speaking to. So these summaries that we read later, or even the individual teachings, may not be applicable to our lives today. individually or as a group because there are things about them that change or land differently or this language doesn't work so well. And I think equanimity can be... Yeah.

[09:56]

So... And equanimity came up for me particularly because recently a friend was talking about their practice with equanimity, like doing an equanimity practice as opposed to just one of the other practices that we do that... also support that, the specific equanimity practice. And the effect on him, which was to create... My sense of it was that it created a greater sense of spaciousness in his mind, and particularly in his relationships with other people. And I was really interested and curious to hear this... this transformation. So that was what got me started on thinking about equanimity. And before I talk about equanimity, I want to say something about the near and far enemies.

[10:57]

So in the Brahma Vaharas, we talk, you know, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Each one has Near enemies and far enemy. So the near enemy of loving kindness, of course, is hate. And I'm sorry, the far enemy is hate. And the near enemy is clinging or attachment. That stickiness. With equanimity, the near enemy, I'm sorry, the far enemy is craving or aversion. That seems... relatively clear that it's very hard to be a quantumist if you're really wanting something to be a certain way or you're really not wanting to be something a certain way. And it's strong enough that it feels completely wrong in mind and body and becomes hard to settle. But the near enemy of equanimity is indifference.

[11:59]

And when I started reading some of the older texts on equanimity practice, from the Visuddhimagga in particular, which is a commentary on, you know, the whole polycan and the whole collection of the Buddhist texts, talks, written hundreds of years later, after the Buddha's death, they could be construed very easily as tending towards, as encouraging indifference. But apparently these four Brahma Baharas were taught in some sequence of love and kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity for a reason. Because by the time you get to equanimity, you're so saturated in kindness and connection and well-wishing, and you're more in that state of mind.

[13:02]

So I think the different language might not... certain language might not land harshly or as tending toward indifference. It can be a... You know, it's the context, right? So I had to look up, of course, some more modern translations or phrasings of these which don't have that tendency. But I want to just start with the way that... My friend was practicing because it caught my attention. Often the Brahma Baharas are practiced in terms of repeating a phrase. There are many ways to practice them, but the phrase practice is common like, may I be well, loving, and peaceful. May all beings be well, loving, and peaceful. May this person be well, loving, and peaceful. So with equanimity,

[14:03]

The initial phrase is, my happiness and suffering depend upon my actions and not my wishes. And the one that, you know, for another person, is your happiness and suffering depend upon your actions and not my wishes for you. And that can sound really cold. And I'm bringing this up because I think it's hard to find the relational point if we don't kind of look at both sides. Because it can sound really harsh that my actions, my happiness and suffering are due to my, are depend upon my actions, my acts of body, speech, and mind, and not on my wishes, not how I wish things would be.

[15:12]

But this is actually pointing toward karma, which is such a core teaching for the Buddha about how things are. And one of the things that he was speaking to counteract opposition to was a very dominant idea at the time that was rather fatalistic that you know you were just born into these circumstances and you just accepted your lot and the Buddha taught that we have we may not have control over our circumstances but we have control we have input we have influence and input We have response ability. We have the ability to respond to how we meet what is there, what arises. And highlighting that over and over again, rather than either just kind of grinding endurance and shutting down or falling into blame and

[16:29]

anger and agitated finger-pointing that isn't actually helpful. It's like, what supports compassionate action in the world? And he centered it on each person, that we're responsible for our own actions in our lives. He said, our actions, our acts of body, speech, and mind are our only true possessions. That's all that really kind of sticks to us. You know, these things of our lives, our lives themselves, we can't hold on to. But what we do has this, what we say, what we do, what we think, has a way of radiating out through the world. It has an impact. So he was pointing, I think, to not only our responsibility, but our agency, our agency in the world. agency with other people, our agency in our own lives, what we can actually do and the possibility for transformation, internal and external.

[17:38]

And in many ways equanimity, well, equanimity is often found in lists of things, lots of lists in Buddhism. And it's often found close to the end, end or close to the end. It's kind of a culmination of all these other wonderful qualities that are being generated to find equanimity. And at the same time, I don't think we have to wait until we have fully steeped in all of those. Just like zazen, we can jump in the deep end. We can just do it. We don't have to go through all the steps and stages to get there. So one instance in my own experience that made a huge impact on me all the time, and I think I've...

[18:50]

mentioned this in a talk before. After studying equanimity recently, it hit me in a very different way. And I had gone home to visit my mom. I was in my early 30s. And she said something that really hurt my feelings. And I didn't say anything at the time. And it was about my body. And As I was saying goodnight to her, she was sitting up in bed and I came in to say goodnight. And I just wanted to say, you know, I just want to let you know you hurt my feelings. And that was it. But I started to cry when I said that. And that got her going because I was starting to get emotional and feeling vulnerable. And she got really upset.

[19:52]

And she clearly didn't know how to handle it. And she just kept saying, what do you want from me? In this really mad, agitated voice, what do you want from me? What did I do? What did I do? And it went on for about five or 10 minutes. It was really painful. So did not want to do this in any way. And at some point, because she kept saying, what do you want from me? I actually heard the question rather than just a sort of blame or putting it on me or whatever. And I thought, what do I want from her? And I realized that what I really wanted was that she would acknowledge that I was hurting. Just that.

[20:53]

I didn't want her to apologize. I didn't want her to say I'm sorry. I mean, that's fine, but that wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted her to be able to acknowledge that I was hurting, not even that it had anything to do with her. And in that moment, I realized that that was beyond her capacity. Because I was her daughter, she could not be there with that. And as soon as I realized that she couldn't do that, that that wasn't forthcoming, all my stuff just completely fell away. It was just gone. And there was like no transition. It was just like becoming aware of that. It was just like poof. And I think she saw some change in me And then she started getting more overtly mad at my agitating her.

[21:55]

And she said, well, now you've really upset me, and I'm going to be awake all night. And she was a bad sleeper, so I knew that that was true. And I'm like, okay, but I'm going to give you a kiss goodnight before I leave. And she said, you will not. And I'm like, oh, yes, I will. In about a minute, she was like giggling and laughing and it was all gone for her too. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing. And I have no idea like all the causes and conditions that brought me to like that point, but like the... I mean, between us, I got it. It's like, she's getting upset because I'm getting upset. And then we're upsetting each other. That's clear. But when I stopped being upset, it was also clear that that had a huge impact on her.

[22:56]

You know, she's just so tied, you know, your child. But when it came up recently, it's like, oh, This is a mental thing. This is a cognitive awareness that this is not possible, that this is not happening. And, you know, I'm sure for many people that would be just a very ordinary, everyday thing, like I can't get any of my needs bent by my mom. But it was fresh for me. Having had a different set of stuff until that moment, it's just like, oh, the mind is so powerful. So I started really seeing, oh, these phrases, these phrases about loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity, really have a power.

[24:04]

Because they're planting seeds of a way that we would like to see the world. that we would like to internalize and take more for granted. So whether we understand how things are unfolding or not, how things happen in the world, they're always happening in a way that is in accord with the laws of karma. In other words, there are causes and conditions which lead to this. We may not know what they are, but just knowing that there are causes and conditions that lead to what's happening, we have more possibility, more potential to clearly observe what's happening.

[25:09]

and to see how things arise, how they sustain themselves, how they pass away, whether it's in the internal realm, the interpersonal realm, or the wider world, the political realm in the world, we can now see much more how things arise, how they persist, how they pass away, and to learn more and more how to be skillful and wise and support well-being for all people. all beings. So just seeing that something arises due to causes and conditions, if we can maintain a more equanimous mind, a more neutral... Neutral can sound like indifference, but I mean it more... A more balanced mind. Maybe I could say a more balanced mind that's able to hold both sides.

[26:12]

Because many of the ones in the middle sound like not moving one side or another, which can fall into sounding like indifference. But I was thinking about, like, if you're baking bread, and I'm not a baker, but my understanding is that, like, for bread to rise and bake properly, you know, the way you would like it to. It's dependent on several things. And I think it has to do with the kneading and the temperature and the humidity or the moisture, many things that go together. And we do the best we can, but we don't always know all the factors that are happening at that moment, or we can't always control them. So it's this continued responsiveness. non-blaming, but just being like, okay, this is the loaf of bread that we have right now.

[27:14]

This is the loaf of bread that I'm dealing with right now. And we're going to slice it and eat it. However it is. And we're very, very good at doing that in many areas of our lives. I'm pretty good about doing that in relationship to food that I make because I have not a lot of investment in it. It's not part of my identity. So it's like when I make food and other people, particularly for myself, I like what I make, but it's not fancy. But other people care a lot about how their food comes out if they're sharing it with other people because there's an identity there. And it can be painful, I should say. I have observed some people that I know and love freaking out about how things came out before the guests arrived. Not everybody who deals with food does this, but I think over time, many people get like, okay, so that's what's happening.

[28:24]

And we all have areas of our lives that are, like other people would get upset and we don't. It's like, I got that. I can deal with however the wobbliness of this moment is. And I think it's helpful to remember the areas of our lives that we are untroubled by even when things go in unexpected or unsatisfying ways. Because we had to learn all of that. We had to learn every bit of that. And remembering that it's learnable, that developing skillful means for ourselves and for others is something we can do all the time. We never stop learning. We never stop growing. Or we don't have to. And having a mindset that says, oh, I can continue to learn.

[29:29]

I can continue to be more at ease. in and with my life as it is, whatever is happening. Because really persistent or painful or difficult states of mind and body make it hard to, can make it hard to function, can make it hard to just be So with my friend who was doing that practice, he said, you know, your happiness and suffering depend on your actions and not on my wishes for you. It gave him the space to let the other person be, to not, you know, to remove the whatever was there.

[30:40]

clinging, aversion, whatever, to what's going on for this other person or these other people, thinking it should be otherwise, believing that it should be otherwise, and just being like, oh, you are actually responsible for your life. I can't fix you. I can't change you. I can do things that I hope will support your well-being, but I can't fix or change you. And I thought about one set of parents in particular I know who had a very difficult time with one of their children. And they were an adult. And it was very, very hard to let their child continue in their life the way that she was.

[31:43]

So painful. to watch for them. And they still feel tremendous pain, but they don't have a lot of extra. And they're very... They have a very strong Christian faith. They're my in-laws, one part of my in-laws. And... Yeah, they still have, and I think their strength, their faith really supports them and they can pray for their daughter and wish her well and wish her well-being and still acknowledge that they can't fix this and be able to live with it. And I think with that kind of an extreme condition, you know, to watch them over the years gradually find some peace for themselves and in their relationship, even though they still feel the pain of it.

[32:50]

So there's something in equanimity that is about letting go, that's not turning away, it's not pushing away, it's not ignoring, and it's not holding on. And in Zen we talk about letting go a lot. Just let go. Just drop it. And we all have our own ways of letting go. Some people push away. Mine has mostly been to persist in the past in particular, to persist in whatever it is that I think is the right way. despite all evidence to the contrary, until my little fist is just so exhausted or battered that I can't hold on anymore. And then I let go. And, you know, anytime you let go, it's great. Actual letting go is such a big relief.

[34:01]

There's space there. There's... some increased clarity about whatever we haven't been able to see so clearly. And maybe it's just about the relationship with the world, like actually, like for me with my mom, just in that moment, actually on a far deeper level than I ever had. Oh, of course, she doesn't have this to give. She never had that in her own life, that someone would just show up for her that way. So of course she doesn't know how to do that. She didn't see it modeled. She didn't feel it. It's what she gives to everybody else. But her daughter's too close when there's something wrong to do that. And it wasn't until that moment that I could know that cognitively, but I didn't

[35:07]

experience it. And since that time, you know, with notable fallings off from that periodically, it's mom and daughter, you know, that's the ground point, is I can see her so much more clearly. So... Anything else about equanimity I wanted to say this morning? Oh, yes. One of the practices that I've been doing recently is the most simple of all, which is just bringing the word equanimity to mind regularly. Like just calling it in. Like, this could be a possibility. And... And then the ensuing question, oh, what would help with that?

[36:10]

Maybe I'll just get up and have a glass of water and just do that for the time it takes to get up and have a glass of water. It's like, oh, yeah, moving the body, doing something simple. That's really helpful, actually. And just to come back again and again and again. It becomes... it becomes more accessible. It becomes more available. So it doesn't have to be complex, but it could be something that you might want to consider keeping in mind along with whatever other beautiful practices you're doing. or qualities that you're cultivating. So I want to, since this is a, working with equanimity is something relatively new for me, at least in this way, and I wanted to leave plenty of room for time for questions, challenges, what landed, what didn't, to kind of have a fuller conversation.

[37:32]

I see Ross. Hi, Linda. Hi, Ross. Listening to your commentary on the Vasudhi Maga and sharing your experience with your mother, I'm reminded of a Dharma teaching that I heard once that I'd like you to reflect on and comment as it relates to your talk. The teaching is, you can't make me angry, I make myself angry. Yeah. I think that is... I think that really expresses what the, you know, this teaching from the Vasudhi Maga, your... You know, your happiness and suffering depends on your own.

[38:38]

You know, it's like, do you take the bait or not? And I want to be clear that this isn't about, you know, we don't always have the power to stop ourselves from being angry. But that potential is there. Because we all know that some things people could say to us that are really insulting or awful, we wouldn't get angry about for a whole variety of reasons. We don't have a close relationship with that person. They're not threatening us. Or this isn't someone that we need to pay so much attention to. It's insulting, but why would I get upset about that? So we have ways of assessing that. for ourselves. So I think it really depends on the circumstances, but that is a potential that we have to be skillful with our nervous systems.

[39:51]

Thank you so much. I see Marley. Good morning, Linda. Morning. I have... A lot came up, so I'm trying to keep it down to one. But there might be a second question. We'll see. So one thing early in this talk, we were talking about equanimity and wishes versus actions of body, speech, and mind. and I'm not trying to get cute, but isn't a wish an act of mind? And we made a lot of vows, right, here, and that's mind and speech and body. So I guess, where do acts of mind fit into this to not just be a wish that, you know, is trying to control reality without adding to it?

[40:59]

Yes, that's great. I think in this context, wish means I wish it were otherwise or I wish it were this way. Often when we talk about wishes, it's devoid of action or intentionality. It's just wanting it to be otherwise. So I could say maybe... wishes without or desires. It's also translated as my desires. So desires without some form of action. Yeah. A horribly cute story popped into my mind. I will suppress it now. But I'll tell you afterwards if you're interested. It's, you know, many things require work. on our part, not work, effort. So how we choose to use our minds, what we say to ourselves, our internal self-talk is part of what creates our experience.

[42:14]

So all of that is very powerful, but also we have to move it in some other way to manifest it, mostly. There's something involved in, you know, and as you say, exactly, that there are mental acts, which there's mental, often mental acts, and then speech acts and physical acts, embodied acts. But those can actually go in different orders as well. So I think it's giving us more, the intention is to give us more agency and more, you know, like fully engage with this. And vows are a little different. Yeah. Thank you. I'm not going to ask the other one because it would take that long. Thank you. Anyone else? Jeff and then Khan. In your recognition that your mother couldn't provide

[43:27]

what you were looking for at that time. How do you hold that while also giving her the capacity for change and growth? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not expecting that. I think subsequent to that time, there were a couple of moments where I actually felt that we were both completely present. I mean, they were like really short. They were about 10 seconds or so. That was like a trigger place for her to be like actually open and present. And she had some serious early childhood trauma. You know, the adverse childhood experiences she had, you know. But as she was, in her last days, as she was in the process of dying, she was like really doped up on morphine. She was very clear. She was very clear. But all the anxiety and fear in her body was completely gone.

[44:31]

And she was like, she was transparent. I was emotional because I'm feeling like, oh, my mom's dying. And I'm, you know, I'm so sad for my stuff with her and our distance and all this stuff. And she's like, and she said, and I was saying some of this. And she's like, who do you think you are? God? And it was so loving. I just got out of the room and just sobbed, you know. So, yeah, it's like who knew that morphine was the cause and condition for my mother's being able to express all the love that has always been in her heart. Like, people would say, your mother is a saint. And I'm like, oh, you know. LAUGHTER Because she was with everyone else. She was so loving, so giving. And among her generation, you know, the kind of emotional walled offness was just what you did to get by.

[45:36]

There was no judgment there. Thanks. Thank you. And I can't actually see if anyone online has their hand up because the way my screen is. Okay. Okay. Linda, thank you for the talk. I especially enjoyed your story about your mom. My question has to do with walking the line between equanimity and indifference. And I'm curious, maybe relating that to you and your mom in the last question as well. But for me, I find it's like, how do I hold, how do I walk the line between acceptance and aspiration? And that's... It's trickier than it sounds, I find, to do that. So I wonder if there's anything you could say about that, and maybe in particular in the example of you and your mom.

[46:37]

I think you said it really well. It's tricky. And it's subtle. And I think there are many areas in our practice where it's just a continual refinement. And we may not know in any given moment... But it sounds like you have times when you feel like you're tending more to one side or the other. Because it's like, I think, like when kids are little and they're learning to walk and stuff, they fall over one way or the other really easily. And over time, you can walk a little more securely. And then we have very good, for much of our lives, really good internal balance. And we can navigate Well, on uneven ground and then on even ground, on uneven ground, and then you get older and then things are less reliable again, which is interesting too. And it's like learning how to deal with, like, how do we meet this?

[47:41]

And I think curiosity, interest, not assuming that what worked last time will necessarily work this time, just in the back of your mind, like, well, I did this before, and it was horrible, so I'm never going to do that again. Or, I did this last time, and it worked great, and you try it again, and it does not go well. Because it's like this moment, this person you are now, this particular other person or situation... or news or whatever it is that you're meeting now. And as you reflect on those things, you might be like, you know, actually, what I was thinking of was acceptance. I can now be also alert to the fact that there's a part of me pushing away that's trying to avoid.

[48:43]

Like, I really have aversion to that. I'm scared of that. I don't want to go there. And I'm kind of covering it up because it's hard to let in. And it's like, how much to let in for how long? When? This is ongoing. This is like, how much to eat? We're up at Enso Village now, and it's all this different food, and you can have whatever, and I just keep overeating. It's like, I hope this will... straighten out soon, but it's like it's a new situation. I have to figure it out new, you know? So I think the fact that you have this question is great. And I think just to hold that question and see what you notice over time. You're probably going to stay most of the time relatively in there, but if, you know, somewhere in balance, and if it's starting to go out,

[49:49]

You know, just keep noticing and be like, oh, actually I'm trying to, I'm being indifferent and I'm calling it acceptance. And that's actually not what I want to do. And I'm kind of afraid of what it'll mean if I open to this. Can I allow it to move through me without getting stuck? Can I see when it's time to let go and change gears? go have a glass of water, a walk outside, you know, a big heavy meal so I can just feel my body and ground, whatever it is. It's just, it's all ongoing tuning, attuning, tuning inwardly, tuning outwardly. And our friends and our Dharma buddies, people closest to us, can also really help with that. especially if you invite them.

[50:51]

You have a speaker online, Jinan. Okay. I think we had someone over here first. Is that right? Okay. And then we'll get to you, Jinan. Hi, thank you for your talk. I heard recently that the element associated with equanimity is the earth element. And one way to kind of access that is to kind of imagine the body as a giant mountain, which didn't really work for me. But instead, I've used the image of a giant redwood and feeling very rooted in the earth and tall and wide and strong. So I just thought I would share that in case that's a helpful way for people to get into it. That's great. Thank you. I had found a passage from the Pali Canon of the Buddha talking to his son, Rahula.

[52:00]

And he encouraged Rahula to make his mind like the earth because the earth receives everything. And he listed various bodily things like feces and urine and pus and spit and blood. And he said, without reactivity, you know, without aversion. and without clinging to just receive it. I'm like, powerful image, I'm not sure. You know, and I'm thinking, and at that, you know, in the Buddhist time, all of those things, it's not like it was in hospitals or going nicely down the toilet. It was like, this was all out in the open. This was like everyday stuff. And it's like, so yeah, redwoods here. You know, we're familiar with redwoods. This is, you know, it's like, probably wouldn't say that to someone where they don't have redwoods, but it's like, what is the image that helps you find that sense of rootedness or strength or ability to, you know, withstand?

[53:09]

Bamboo's another good one because it can bend without breaking. Yeah, so, yeah, thank you. It's beautiful. and online, Gina. Hi, good morning. Thank you for your talk. A lot resonated and I just had a thought about the redwood trees. Some fun fact I learned is that trees grow in both directions simultaneously, which has also been a great metaphor and visual of existing in both kind of also reminds me of equanimity, you're holding both and moving in both direction, that balance. Kind of interested in following up on the nervous system aspect. And I found that for me, I was really liking regulation being a form of equanimity. And in learning our nervous system and

[54:15]

how to be in balance in our own bodies can help the mind reach that state or that state of balance. And that's why I really appreciate those small moments of mentioned movement to allow it to be present. So there's a multitude of ways in which whether body or mind to reach that place of balance. Though when you don't know you're activated, is there any other tools? And since there's such a correlation between the mind and the body, I don't know, there's more you can speak to about that relationship. Well, the nervous system is continually sending messages from the body to the brain and the brain to the body.

[55:16]

So that dialogue is always going on. It's not just one way. It's just not mind to body. It's also body to mind. So if we get startled, even if it's not something dangerous, we know immediately it's not something dangerous, we can still feel a flood of adrenaline and agitated for a while. So it's helpful to know that it will take a while for it to pass, for one, and then to not add anything extra to it. But I think each person has different things about moving the body or what helps the body. For me, it's really helpful to lie down on my back on a firm surface, like the floor mat or something, with my knees up, because then it's like just feeling the earth, having an entirely different perspective. I'm looking at the ceiling, kind of shifts things. And just like I have this support all along my back. And I have some low back stuff, so feeling supported there feels great, especially with my feet up or my knees up, you know.

[56:24]

But I think exploring and seeing what feels good, like what feels good, is really helpful. And I love walking. I will say that supportive things, containing things, you know, like... giving yourself a hug or wrapping something tightly around yourself can feel very containing, which is why I think our moms do it when we're freaked out a little or flailing. It's like the opposite of flailing is containing in a way that feels good. And rhythm. Again, babies, rhythmic, rocking, bouncing on the knees. Oh yeah, my body's going all jangly to get in rhythm. Sometimes I like to dance, so I'll put on something that is something I really like to dance to. It has a rhythm and speed that I want, and it's in a completely different place than my mind.

[57:26]

And after a song or two, it's like, I feel pretty different. If I'm willing to do it, if I'm trying to get myself out of something and I'm not 100%, then I get sulky. No, I need to feel this way. And I'm like, fine, do it. Then do something else.

[57:47]

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