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In this guided meditation, mindfulness teacher Margaret Cullen leads us into the practice of equanimity: the steady, balanced heart that can remain open in the midst of life’s constant change.

Through gentle breath awareness and reflective phrases, this practice explores how we can care deeply for others while also recognizing the limits of our control over their happiness and suffering.

Settle into the meditation

Margaret Cullen: Let’s begin by finding a comfortable posture that supports both relaxation and alertness. Either close your eyes or lower your gaze, and turn your attention inward.

Begin with three deep, diaphragmatic breaths, filling the entire torso with the in-breath: from the belly all the way up to the collarbone. Then empty the torso completely on the out-breath, like filling and emptying a vessel with water.

On the third out-breath, release any control of the breath. Allow it to find its own natural rhythm.

As the breath settles into a more natural pace, gather your attention on the sensations of breathing, wherever they’re most predominant in your body.

As best you can, bring an attitude of patience, kindness, and even a little amusement to the wandering mind. It’s inevitable, after all. So why fight it? The less you fight it, the less agitated it will be.

If you can stay with the sensations of the breath and the body for a breath or two, see if you can notice the space between the breaths, that moment of perfect equipoise that happens all by itself, about fifteen times a minute.

Allow this naturally arising moment of balance in the body to become the focus of your attention. See if you can find the effortless, spacious ease between expansion and contraction, between rising and falling.

Reflect on equanimity

Now reflect for a moment on the quality of equanimity. What are the benefits of a mind that has balance and equanimity? See what floats to the surface of your mind.

You might sense what a gift it would be to bring a peaceful heart to the painful agitation of our current world. Connect with your own deepest and most sincere intention to cultivate equanimity by silently repeating these phrases, and see how they land for you:

May I be open, balanced, and at peace.
May my heart find rest and balance in the midst of all things.

Sense into that point of balance within yourself, amidst all that is constantly changing, your inner gyroscope. Now silently drop in the following phrases and see if they’re true for you, and if they open up greater spaciousness and ease:

Things are just as they are.
All things are impermanent.
Feelings arise and pass away.

As you repeat these phrases, connect as best you can with their full implications, or with whatever upsets or preoccupies you in this moment.

Things are just as they are.
All things are impermanent.
Feelings arise and pass away.

I am safe in this moment.
I am safe in this moment.

Where does our happiness and suffering come from

Now reflect on the reality of how much our own happiness or suffering comes from our thoughts, actions, and circumstances, not from others’ wishes for us.

We may have partners who love us, friends, parents, but ultimately we are responsible for our own happiness and well-being. This is also true for our loved ones.

Loving others inevitably opens us to feelings of helplessness when they suffer. And no matter how fortunate their lives may be, everyone will experience pain.

Reflect on the idea that all beings are the recipients of their own choices, actions, and circumstances. While we can deeply love and care for others, in the end their happiness and suffering depend more on their thoughts, actions, and circumstances than on our wishes for them.

Equanimity practice recognizes this reality without forsaking any of the love that you feel.

Think of someone you love

Now bring to mind someone you love who is going through some difficulty. Choose a situation that doesn’t feel overwhelming in this moment. Feel into the following phrases:

Your happiness and suffering depend on your thoughts, actions, and circumstances—not my wishes for you.

Recognizing this:

I will continue to wish for your happiness and for you to understand the deepest sources of your own happiness.

I will care for you, but I cannot keep you from suffering.

Knowing and accepting the limits of what you can do for this loved one, silently offer them the following phrases. Feel free to change the language to whatever works for you:

May you be happy and have access to the deepest causes of your own happiness.
May you be balanced and peaceful.
May you flourish and find true equanimity.

Allow your heart to be touched by whatever poignancy you experience as you imagine your loved one being free from suffering, while fully recognizing the limits of what you can and cannot do. Holding both.

Refresh the image of your loved one and offer them the same wishes:

May you be happy and have access to the deepest causes of your own happiness.
May you be balanced and peaceful.
May you flourish and find true equanimity.

Now imagine expanding your field of equanimity beyond yourself and your loved one, to encompass the whole world.

May I find balance, equanimity, and peace amidst it all.
May all beings flourish.
May all beings live in balance and in peace.

Close this practice by releasing the words and images and returning to the simple sensations of the breath in the body.

Relax into the rhythm of expansion and contraction, and savor the natural point of balance between the two.

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