SnowFlower Sun Reflections
August 16, 2025 |

Gratitude & Equanimity

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SnowFlower Sun October 2024

By Cheri Maples

GRATITUDE

Mindfulness and the practice develop an attitude of gratitude. The first aspect of gratitude is humility. You can’t find gratitude in your mind. You can only find it by leading with your heart and living it. Being in the moment is how we experience gratitude. Gratitude is about recognizing there is so much wonder, so much mystery, so much life beyond the realm of finite understanding that we fall into a space of joy. When we are grateful, we are able to delight in what we do not know.

We give gratitude of lots of things—a beautiful flower; nature; our families, including all those we define as our beloveds; all of our blessings; and the practice. If our practice is developed, we are still able to give gratitude for our most challenging times because the practice gives us the ability to hold it all, or the ability not to get caught by what we see and feel in any given moment.

We are grateful for what people do for us, but what do we want people’s reasons to be doing things for us or doing what we have asked for? When people give out of a sense of responsibility, duty, obligation, fear, guilt, or shame, they often feel resentment and anger. Then, everyone misses out on the opportunity to connect compassionately in a way that would enrich life. Conversely, when people can truly connect or understand how their giving enriches the lives of others, they feel joy in performing acts of giving.

We often associate “please” and “thank you” with gratitude in some form. MR claims “please” is an opportunity to enrich life. And “thank you” is a celebration that life has been enriched, a way of displaying our gratitude.

Thay claims the moment we focus on the desire for another to be happy and at peace, the energy of love arises in us.

Being present increases our sense of gratitude.

Gratitude leads to equanimity.

EQUANIMITY

Equanimity – it is ground for wisdom and freedom, and it is the protector of compassion and love. False equanimity produces a dry neutrality or cool aloofness while mature equanimity produces a radiance and warmth of being.

Four qualities of equanimity:

  1. Integrity – this gives us the ability to feel confident about our actions and words, which results in the blamelessness that leads to equanimity. Step away from needing perfection in ourselves and others.

As we become more wholehearted in this journey of gentle honesty, it comes a quite a shock to realize how much we have blinded ourselves to some of the ways in which we cause harm. It is painful to face how we harm others & it takes a while. It is a journey that happens because of our commitment to gentleness & honesty. Includes not being aggressive with our actions, our speech, or our minds; learning to put space between your thoughts and your words – not blurting out whatever you think and then not taking responsibility for it by saying something like, “just kidding.”

It means learning the process of the selective watering of the seeds you want to grow stronger in yourself & others. It means identifying and being in touch with the elements in your life that you find refreshing so you can figure out a way of living that brings peace and harmony. When we learn not to cause harm in ourselves, we learn how not to cause harm in others.

Often, after we are with our partners for some time, we start to see those small things that irritate us, and then some of the bigger things, and we begin to say to ourselves, where is that person I was so wildly in love with? Or why can’t he or she do this or that or be more like this or that? Where is his or her willpower to get to the place where I can love how they look and act? Were we really in love with the person or was it a series of moments we were in love with?

When I am in a state of gratitude and equanimity, I have the feeling of being able to hold it all at the same time. My own flaws and the flaws of others don’t bother me. I don’t need to be caught by what I see, whether it is the things I enjoy about myself and another or the things that I would secretly like to change.

I can learn to separate people’s actions from who they are. Promoting neutrality in this manner quiets our need to approve and disapprove of others and promotes a powerful understanding that others, as well as ourselves, are the heirs of our own karma.

We can agree or disagree with what they do but remain balanced in our relationship with them. When I don’t need them to be perfect, they can be who they are. Then, I don’t love them from a false sense of idolizing or worship, which leads to them sooner or later disappointing me by falling off the pedestal. Likewise, I don’t need them to be wrong, which leads to a sense of demonizing them in some form. I still see it all clearly, but I don’t get caught in the drama of what I see. I also have no desire to convince others of what I see. When well developed, such power gives us a great sense of peace & equanimity.

A powerful way to do this is to develop the honest awareness or mindfulness of when equanimity is absent. Honest awareness of what makes us imbalanced helps us to learn how to find balance. We enjoy the feeling of spaciousness that comes from seeing the big picture.

What would it feel like to go into any group of people you know and feel blameless, to have balanced emotions and an acceptance of things and people as they are. What would it be like to be able to quiet both our resentment and our approval. It would certainly promote an ability to drop our views of merit and competition in a manner that would enable us to see equality in all beings.

  1. Faith – a conviction or confidence in our ability to engage in a spiritual practice.

When we place our faith entirely in others or their teachings, rather than remembering the need for faith in our own understanding, we end up caught in the shadow side of surrender & devotion, which is passivity and dependence.

In Buddhism, faith does not deepen as we are taught more about what to believe. The first 3 of the 14 Mindfulness Trainings reflect this. Rather, faith grows as we question what we are told, as we try teachings out by putting them into practice to see if they really make a difference in our own lives. The Buddha discovered the answers about the nature of our existence not through revelation from a supreme being, but through the power of awareness that is inherent in all of us.

Faith, in contrast to belief, is not a definition of reality, not a received answer, but an active, open state that makes us willing to explore. We have to think enough of ourselves to claim the right to question what is offered, to investigate what we are being told, to trust our own experience. Skillful doubting is an intrinsic part of faith.

Asking questions to find truth goes far beyond learning to more freely question others. It means adopting an attitude of wonder, delving into whatever is in front of us, in order to taste & touch & feel it acutely for ourselves & learn from it. It is learning to live deeply with the mystery of whatever questions we have in our soul. Questioning means longing to know the truth deeply & insisting that we can.

Skillful doubting in this context becomes a good thing, as long as it is done from this place of wonder. Alternatively, when it is done as an exercise in the mental masturbation of debating, or arguing one side or another of pointless questions, it becomes unskillful. Likewise, if it turns into cynicism that enables us to distance ourselves with a form of either self-important arrogance or rigid self-righteousness, it is no longer skillful doubting either.

Sharon Salszberg writes, “The essence of faith lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely. It is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience. Even in times of immense suffering, it is faith that enables us to relate to the present moment in such a way that we can go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in resignation or despair. Faith links our present-day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life. With faith we move into the unknown, openly meeting whatever the next moment brings.”

The power of letting go in the face of the unexpected changes of life, whether those changes are things like depression, divorce, and death; or happy occasions like births and falling in love. Faith allows us, despite our fear, to get as close as possible to the truth of the present moment, so that we can offer our hearts fully to it. Whatever takes us to our edge, to our outer limits, leads us to the heart of life’s mystery, and there we find faith and insight. In the process, we have to confront many old habits. When we experience the present-day experience as horrible in some way, fear sets in. The problem with fear is that it collapses possibility.

If we can develop the insight that enables us to surrender to the moment, regardless of what is going on, we can relax into the vast space of not knowing. It means feeling our fear, but remaining in touch with our heart so that fear does not define our entire world. All of us face times in our lives when our pain is so overwhelming that we feel entirely lost in it. It is suffering that forms a seal around us. Doubt is an intrinsic part of genuine faith. The opposite of faith is despair. Faith is our ability to offer our heart to the truth of what is happening, to see our experience as the embodiment of life’s mystery, the present expression of possibility, the conduit connecting us to a bigger reality.

Transformation is not to be found in the pain, but within us in relationship to it. It can be found in opening rather than closing down, in compassion for ourselves rather than contempt. If we open our hearts and minds big enough to take in the suffering, there will be healing – not because the suffering itself is redemptive or healing, but because of the opening we cultivate in the face of it. Faith is about opening up & making room for even the most painful experiences. To offer our hearts in faith means recognizing that our hearts are worth something, that we ourselves, in our deepest & truest nature, are of value. As C.S. Lewis writes, “It is in the act of offering our hearts in faith that something in us transforms, & what may have been merely a remote abstraction flames into life.”

  1. A Commitment to Our Own Well-Being – not overlooking the practices that cultivate well-being in our daily lives

Nutrition, moderation, sleep, exercise, but especially using the practice to cultivate calm, concentration, and mindfulness. Making sure we have and take the time to be present with our beloved, our tea, or the sunset. Balanced emotions toward the accumulation of things & property.

  1. Insight – deep seeing into the nature of things as they are; the understanding the nature of our fears and our suffering.

Beginning to develop a comfortable relationship with the concept of impermanence, which leads to letting go of clinging and developing true wisdom.

No matter how much we want it to be otherwise, the truth is we are not in control of the unfolding of our experiences. When we can develop the insight that enables us to surrender to that knowledge with a deep acceptance, we will always live in a state of grace and gratitude, regardless of what is going on.

The development of gratitude and equanimity leads to the freedom contained in each of our Buddha natures. It comes when we don’t get so easily triggered by others and let go of our reactive tendencies. Use the horizon effect on this by getting a taste of noticing the areas in which you were once reactive but are no longer. Look, notice, and acknowledge how far you have come and then work to expand the range of life experiences in which you are free, precisely because you are not reactive.

The other road to the faith that leads to freedom is to develop the conviction that the heart of the Buddha is within you. No matter what happens, we can place our faith in the deepest part of ourselves, our Buddha nature.

 

Engaged Buddhism: Practice in Action

The Wisconsin Prison Mindfulness Initiative (WPMI)

By Steven Spiro

“I was just about to slug him when I remembered what you guys said. So, I stopped and took a few breaths and walked away. And that’s why I’m not in the hole.”

The Wisconsin Prison Mindfulness Initiative has about 40 volunteers statewide who go into many of Wisconsin’s 22 prisons. We’ve been teaching secular meditation and mindfulness for about twelve years currently at 14 locations. Our groups range from a dozen participants up to 50. In some prisons we do one-on-one visits.

There are also regular Buddhist services available to prisoners currently at 15 prisons. Walt Keough, Steven Spiro, and David Zeman regularly facilitate these “satellite sanghas” behind bars.

Both efforts reflect Thay’s teachings of “Engaged Buddhism” – bringing our practices into the world to move in the direction of wisdom and love. The group and individual meetings we conduct deepen not only the lives and practices of those we serve but also do the same for the volunteers. Small groups of volunteers are essentially Kaylana Mitta groups, supporting and learning from each other. The work can be heart-opening and challenging for everyone.

Sangha is first and foremost a refuge. “Engaged practice” begins with ourselves by our attending to our own suffering, growth, and healing. There is no expectation in SnowFlower that members should extend their practice outside of their own lives. For some of us, attending to loved ones in need, to our friends, neighbors, and communities, as well as developing our own good heart is engagement enough.

If you’re interested in becoming a WPMI volunteer, the requirements include having a daily meditation practice for a minimum of two years and a willingness to commit to volunteering at least twice a month for one year. Group leaders and volunteers are careful to attend to the progress of the beginning volunteers. There are many skills to be learned in these challenging settings, but the most important quality is simply showing up with an open heart and mind. Cultivating presence is the essence of our engagement.

If you have questions about the WPMI, please feel free to ask any of the following SnowFlower Sangha members: David Haskin, Walt Keough, Dave Zeman, Steven Spiro, Gloria Green, Susan Schwaab, Margot Kennard, Joy Causey, Tom Dulmage, and Lisa Glueck.

Please email Susan Schwaab or Danielle Thai at questions@snowflower.org if you would like to share your experience with Engaged Buddhist practice in a future newsletter.

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