How To Be Okay No Matter What | Kamala Masters

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Equanimity: what it is, what it isn't, and how to get it. Guest Kamala Masters was one of the teachers at Dan's first ever meditation retreat. In this episode she dives into how to develop equanimity and shares her story of learning how to practice meditation during her everyday life while raising three children on her own. Kamala Masters has been meditating since the 1970s, first with Anagarika Munindra, who was Joseph Goldstein's first teacher, and then with the Burmese master Sayadaw U Pandita with whom she twice temporarily ordained as a Buddhist nun. More recently, she's been training with another Burmese master we've talked about here on the show, Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She is a Guiding Teacher at the Insight Meditation Society, and the co-founder of the Vipassana Metta Foundation, which developed the Maui Dharma Sanctuary. In this conversation we talk about: What is equanimity? The most common misconception about equanimity The near and far enemies of equanimity The power and limitations of setting intentions Full Shownotes: https://meditatehappier.com/podcast/tph/kamala-masters-rerun Where to find Kamala Masters online: Website: Vipassana Metta on Maui https://vipassanametta.org/wp/ Additional Resources: Download the Happier Meditation https://my.happierapp.com/start/register?plan=com.10percenthappier.subscription_1year_9999.intro_7day_free&_gl=1*jlrjz9*_gcl_au*NTgxMzQ0MjYxLjE3MzMzMzQ3NDguMTY0NDA5OTYwNC4xNzMzODY2NTQxLjE3MzM4NjY1NDc. app today.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:20Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. How we doing? We're going to go back to one of my favorite subjects today. This is a question that I have spent a lot of time mulling and that people ask me about all the time. Can you get happier, more balanced, more quantumous without losing your edge? Will getting happier make you complacent or make you a doormat? I remember how, when I first got interested in meditation as an ambitious network newsman, I told my dad about my burgeoning interest and he was a hard-charging academic physician at the time. And he told me that he had some colleagues who had gotten into Buddhism and it made them, and these were his words, like, totally ineffective. You may have heard my spiel about how this is a misunderstanding, a misapplication of the lessons of meditation.

• 1:03Dan Harris?

  The goal is not to be resigned, but instead to be more focused and more emotionally agile, to surf your emotions rather than drowning in them. In other words, to learn how to respond wisely to life instead of reacting blindly. In any event, I will spare you my rant on this because you're about to hear it from somebody with vastly more experience than I have. Full disclosure, when I first encountered Kamala Masters back in 2010 on my first-ever meditation retreat, she was the victim of my unfortunate penchant for judgmentalism. I initially dismissed her a little bit because her presentation, I thought, was sort of typically touchy-feely meditation teachery or whatever. But this was just me being dumb. The more I heard her speak, the more I realized both the depth of her practice and also the

• 1:48Dan Harris?

  steeliness underneath. Kamala Masters has been meditating since the 1970s, first with Anagarika Munindra, who was Joseph Goldstein's first teacher, and then with the Burmese master Sayadaw U Pandita, with whom she twice temporarily ordained as a Buddhist nun. More recently, she's been training with another Burmese master we've talked about here on the show a bunch. His name is Sayadaw Utejania. Kamala is a guiding teacher at the Insight Meditation Society and the co-founder of the Vipassana Metta Foundation, which developed the Maui Dharma Sanctuary. In this conversation, we talk about what equanimity actually is and whether it's accessible to mere mortals, how we develop it, the most common misconceptions about equanimity, the

• 2:32Dan Harris?

  near and far enemies of equanimity, the power and limitations of setting intentions, what Kamala means by the phrase "Dharma duct tape," what she means when she talks about karma. We also talk about Metta, or loving kindness, practice and its relationship to equanimity. And we talk about her story of being driven to the Dharma because of the "hell realm," and that's her phrase, of raising three children on her own in her twenties, and then learning to practice at home during everyday life while raising children. Couple of quick notes before we dive in here. First, you're going to hear some background noise from Kamala's home on Maui, including some birdsong, which I found pleasant. Second note is that we originally ran this episode in April of 2022.

• 3:14Dan Harris?

  It was incredibly popular then, so we thought it might be worth sharing again while our team takes a little time off over the holidays. Heads up, we're planning a big January here on the podcast. We're launching a series called Do Life Better. We've identified the top resolutions that people tend to make: fitness, meaning diet, exercise, and the like; personal finances; career success and work-life balance; and reducing your addictions to things like booze and your phone. We will do a week on each of these subjects with our typical blend of modern science and ancient wisdom. And alongside the programming here on the pod, we'll be running a free meditation challenge over at danharis.com. In many ways, meditation is the foundational habit.

• 3:56Dan Harris?

  Mindfulness or self-awareness can fuel the whole process of behavior change. The challenge runs for seven days. It starts on Monday, January 6th. And every day, you'll get a guided meditation directly in your inbox from some of your favorite meditation teachers, including Sharon Salzberg, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren. And then I'll be doing some live check-ins in the evenings where you can log in and ask me anything. The first of those will be free, but the remainder will be for paid subscribers. But again, the challenge itself is free. All you have to do is subscribe over at danharis.com. If you're already a subscriber, there's nothing more you need to do here. The emails will arrive automatically. We'll get started with Kamala Masters right after this.

• 4:40Dan Harris?

  If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps. Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low-stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help.

• 5:21Dan Harris?

  You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. If you care about supporting independent media and if you care about being a node of sanity in an insane world, there are a few quick, easy and free ways that you can support me and my team, which I would be really grateful for. One way to do it is to sign up for my newsletter, which comes out on Monday mornings. It's a little dose of sanity in your inbox at the beginning of a busy week. The second way to do it is to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you're listening or watching right now. That really helps.

• 6:04Dan Harris?

  Three, share your favorite episode with a friend. This is a great and low-stakes way to connect with somebody in your orbit, and not for nothing, it also helps us grow. And all of these things take about 30 seconds, and they really do help. You will be supporting me and my team and our mission, and I, as I said, would be immensely grateful. You can find everything we do at danharris.com. It's all right there. Thank you. I mean that seriously. We'll be right back with more show. Real progress starts with action. As the executive director of the Honold Foundation, Emily Kitesworth works to expand access to solar energy in communities around the world, supporting locally-led projects that bring reliable power, greater independence and opportunity where it is needed most.

• 6:49Dan Harris?

  On the podcast Planet Visionaries, professional climber and Honold Foundation founder Alex Honold goes beyond the headlines with Emily to explore practical solutions for a more equitable future. In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts.

• 7:11Dan Harris?

  Kamala Masters, welcome to the show.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me.

• 7:14Dan Harris?

  Pleasure. I can hear the Hawaii wildlife behind you as we speak.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Right. We're lucky to have that. Along with, once in a while, you'll hear the helicopters with tourists, and we welcome them, too.

• 7:27Dan Harris?

  You were one of the teachers on the first meditation retreat I ever went on, which was a rocky ride for me.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I didn't know it was your first one. Right. Yeah, you've probably done a lot more since then, and a lot of practicing, I bet.

• 7:42Dan Harris?

  At least I've tried to. But anyway, it's nice to see you again, and thank you very much for doing this. Really appreciate it.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 7:49Dan Harris?

  So, we're going to talk about equanimity, and I thought I would ask you an almost embarrassingly basic question, which is, what is equanimity?

• 8:00Speaker 01

  All right. Well, I'm harkening back to when I was walking in the room to get an interview with Seda Upandita, and he asked me the same question. So I'm going to answer that as if I'm there in that room again. And my answer was that equanimity is a spacious mind that can include everything but not be reactive to anything. And when there is reactivity, it comes in two ways. When there is an experience arising, and there is reactivity to it, whether it's an inner or outer experience.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  The reactivity would be in two categories. One would be, there would be aversion to it, or any manifestation of aversion. Or there would be attachment to what's going on inwardly or outwardly. And many versions of attachment also. So equanimity would be a balance in response to what's happening to our inner or outer experience. And that balance would be without reactivity, without attachment, or without aversion. So that's kind of a, in a way, it sounds so theoretical,

• 9:30Speaker 01

  but that's actually what one experiences. So, for example, helicopters that come and go around our sanctuary here. I can see in my heart mind something coming up in response to the sound, the outer sound. And it usually is aversion. It's a lot less now because used to being mindful of it. But there's room for that aversion in the mind. And then what happens is that mindfulness comes to the foreground and is aware of that aversion. So in a way, that aversion is allowed to come and go

• 10:13Speaker 01

  within this field of equanimity. So that's why equanimity really includes the understanding that it's spacious. You know, there's a lot of room for things to arise and pass away with no reactivity to it. Or if there is reactivity, mindfulness can see it, and it's not a problem. It just comes and goes. Is that too theoretical?

• 10:37Dan Harris?

  It's a great place to start. I'll ask, hopefully not too obnoxious, very practical questions at some point. But I do want to say something about the Buddha. Okay, you pointed this out to our producer DJ. Before this interview, when you were chatting with DJ, you pointed out that the Buddha set the bar pretty high here. He said that an quantumist mind would be like the sky. You know, clouds can pass through airplanes. Anything can pass through and there's, the sky's not freaking out about it. So that's a, as I said, that's a pretty high bar.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  That is a pretty high bar. What's so high about it and beautiful about it is that it leaves room for wisdom and compassion to arise. When the mind isn't dealing with the reactivity part, when it can see things like unwholesome states of mind arise and know that they'll pass away, it leaves room for wise response, or compassion would be a wise response. It leaves room for that to arise. Actually, the Buddha did not give that exact quote, but someone described the Buddha's teaching on equanimity to be that way.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Actually, the Buddha said, "It's like the sky, but the rest of it, like anything, can arise." That part, I think it was Achansumado that made that precise description.

• 12:01Dan Harris?

  Is this sky-like mind available to mortals, people who don't live in a meditation sanctuary and don't do decades and decades' worth of silent retreat?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yes, I do see it with yogis that I know of from, you know, there are even people who are even more just beginner yogis, that when they have something like a natural sense of what we call sila, or their morality, or their sense of not harming, is very high and natural. There are more times when the mind can just see things as they really are and not react with an unwholesome mind state. But I have to say that there could be a response to what's going on. So, response, very different from reactivity.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Response would include being able to discern what to say in the moment, what to do in the moment that would be effective, but not necessarily harming. So, it's possible, of course, if you know your mind when you practice mindfulness.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  That's the key for us meditators to know our minds, to know when unwholesome states arise. And when they do arise, can we refrain from acting them out? That's a lifetime of practice, it could be, and more.

• 13:38Dan Harris?

  So would I, it would be fair to conclude then that if I'm interested in having more equanimity, which I think most, everybody probably is, there are at least two ways to practice or to train this skill. One would be to try to be more mindful, which meditation can help with, and to have more what you called sila, or just sort of not being a jerk in your life. And these are two tracks that can lead to the same quality of mind.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  That's right. Yeah, you're laying it out very well because when we're mindful, then we can notice what's going on in the mind. And what the Buddha talked about a lot was a big part of our practice is to refrain from doing anything that's harmful to others and harmful to our own karmic stream too. And then also to nurture those qualities of mind that are causing harmony and goodwill in the world. So there were many ways that the Buddha said that, to refrain from harming and to practice non-harming.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Those two are the basis for sila, for beneficial action and words in the world and in for our own karmic streams. So when we have mindfulness, like you pointed out, mindfulness, knowing more what's going on in our own minds, and then knowing if it's going to be harmful, to refrain. If it's going to be beneficial, to nurture that. So sila is the next part. And then also to recognize when the mind can be equanimous. Some people, of course, a lot of people, I think, have a wrong understanding about equanimity.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  It's, it's as if if we just kind of let ourselves be a doormat and just, you know.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Whatever happens, we're not going to respond. But that isn't true because with equanimity, there is more space for that discerning mind to come up. Like, what would really be helpful? And maybe it would be helpful to just be quiet now. And maybe it would be helpful to take a stand on something and really speak with a loud voice about something, but not causing harm. So then we take action. So the third part of that equanimity is to take action also in ways that would be either wise and/or compassionate. I think you got it in the beginning. Yeah.

• 16:16Dan Harris?

  I'm always looking for the gold star. You said a lot of things I want to follow up on, including at some point, I want to get you to sort of define what you mean by karmic stream. But let me stay with this notion that doesn't make you a doormat and you're learning how to respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. I'd like to kind of dwell in this zone for a little while because I think people will hear you talking about non-harming, being kind, being compassionate, and nonetheless worry that, well, does all of this add up to weakness or passivity?

• 16:45Speaker 01

  Right, I get that. And that is what many people think. No, it doesn't mean that we're just quiet. It doesn't mean that we don't take any action. Sometimes the action is really strong and sometimes it can shock people, but maybe shock them into kind of letting go of their own harmful activity. But I'm trying to think about giving an example. One time I was teaching a retreat and one of the helpers in the retreat is a Buddhist nun. And we were going to buy gifts for our staff of the retreat. So we went to the local shopping center here on Maui.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  And we walked into the entrance. It's an open place. And as soon as we walked in, I saw to my left, which was maybe about 100 steps away, a person approaching quickly another person and pummeling that person.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  Just beating that person on the head. And these were two young boys. And so I kind of knew them in the community. And so the one youngster was against the wall and started to kind of go down the wall. And the other one was hitting on that youngster. And it seemed like one of them was kind of out of it. The one going down the wall was a little bit out of it. And the one hitting him was also quite agitated, of course. There was no words. One was just pummeling the other. I looked at my nun friend and everybody was just

• 18:34Speaker 01

  not doing anything. So I ran towards those two persons and I started yelling with all my might. Get an officer, get somebody, get security, get over here. And I yelled at the other person pummeling and I said, stop it, stop it. Get away. And I was telling the other person with all my might, get away. But I didn't want to go near. And so the other person jumped off of pummeling him. And I kind of ran for safety and that person ran away. So here I am, just out of teaching a retreat in the shopping center. Something has to be done.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  People are walking by, not doing anything. And I'm the one that shouts with all my might and then runs away for safety also. So I just want to give a graphic example of how we need to be sometimes. And I had taken this course in model mugging. I don't know if you know of that. Have you heard of that, model mugging? It's a course that was given here in the islands where all of the people who taught like any kind of martial art was, or many of them, were offering to youngsters in the community a way to know how to defend themselves.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  So I went to this model mugging course with my daughter. She was 14 at the time. So we both had to learn how to defend ourselves. And that was probably about two or three years before this incident that I just talked about. So I really learned how to shout at the top of my lungs, you know, to say, this is wrong, not just don't hurt me, but don't hurt other people. So that really came in handy. So I'm a proponent of speaking loud, speaking up, standing up for one's rights, really saying what needs to be said. But maybe, you know, if we have time, we could think about it ahead of time

• 20:43Speaker 01

  and saying the right words at the right time, you know, all of those things that the Buddha taught, the five ways that we can do right speech. And sometimes it takes a loud voice.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  So I'm all for that.

• 20:58Dan Harris?

  You seem very calm, but when circumstances require it, you can be forceful.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  I really can be. I mean, you know, watch out for Kamala because, yeah, I can get really on it because I had to raise four children. And I had to speak my piece and do what I needed to do sometimes. But I really tried without hurting people, but sometimes I failed. And not with my hands, but with my words, not with my actions, but with my words. Sometimes I would hurt people, but then, you know, then you have time for reflection and you know, maybe when those circumstances happen again, you're more careful. So I'm, like Manindra says, my first teacher said, my path is not yet finished. So I love that.

• 21:50Dan Harris?

  It's useful to hear you say that you retain the capacity to make mistakes because I can imagine people might be listening to this and, you know, you're talking about not being carried away by your anger or whatever emotion that arises in your mind. And immediately some of our minds might flashback on the last time we did get carried away, which might have been like 15 minutes ago. So, so what kind of reassurance can you give us about the fact that we may be, that our paths are certainly not finished?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, we're human. And we're just human and we're always learning. And I can see that in the beginning for me, when I just started the Buddha's path, I didn't know my mind as well. So because I didn't know my mind as well, I would just lash out at something. I wasn't that bad. I was a pretty good person. But, you know, still those things happen. But as I came to practice more and really knew what was harmful and followed the Buddha's teachings about if you can see what's going on and you know it's going to be harmful, then see what you can do to refrain.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  And then, you know, to nurture what's beneficial, of course. So knowing the mind more as I practice more, then I knew how to take those steps. But when I didn't know the mind as much, then I'd flub up a lot. And I'm still flubbing up. But it's not as bad. So that's a reassurance I can give you. It's not as bad. But some people get really surprised, especially, you know, I'm a person of color. I'm a cisgender woman. And I can get stepped on sometimes, you know. So I don't back down when I know I'm not going to get hurt, you know.

• 23:50Dan Harris?

  What guidelines would you have for us if we're thinking about how to be forceful without being harmful?

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Well, because I know sometimes anger still arises in my mind. When I am getting ready to have a talk with someone or even to be in a group of people, I try to prepare my own mind. I try to remember what my intentions are and state intentions before I go into a meeting. State them to myself. Like, may I use words that are clear, beneficial, and useful?

• 24:30Speaker 01

  I mean, that's what I always say at the beginning of a Dharma talk. May I be clear, beneficial, and useful. And so I do that when I know I'm going to go into a meeting. And so I do always have that intention because I've had to prepare for that so many times. And then when I'm in the meeting, I might say something to myself, like when I'm hearing things and I feel reactive, which I do sometimes, of course, I'll state my intention to myself. Stay stable, stay spacious, stay clear. Something like that, just so I give myself short reminders.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  And sometimes I don't have the wherewithal to do that because I'm triggered. That's the truth of how it is, you know? So at least I try to say something like, I may not be right, but this is my perception right now about this. And I feel a bit hot-headed, so I apologize in advance if it comes out kind of, you know, too strong. So I really do try that to the best of my ability. So having some forethought about it and some intentions that we remind ourselves of can really, really help. And then if they all go kafue, then I just forgive myself.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  I'm just human. I'm not perfect. I can't do it right. And I'm sorry if you're expecting me to be perfect because I am not. And I sometimes use four-letter words that just really fires people up sometimes. But I grew up in tough communities. I had to learn that. But I am naturally kind of soft-spoken, but don't let that fool you.

• 26:22Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Kamala explains the power and limitations of intentions, gives us a primer on karma, talks about the relationship between equanimity and metta, or loving kindness, and offers simple and practical equanimity phrases you can use in your everyday life. Right after this.

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• 27:44Dan Harris?

  Just to go back to what you said about intentions. I'll admit that setting intentions, I tend toward the judgmental, which is not one of my strong suits. And I often dismissed the idea of setting intentions as a kind of new age cliche. But I've been disabused of that dismissiveness on the score at the least. And have found that just waking up first thing in the morning and saying like, set the kind of same intention in my mind every day about like wanting to do good work. That helps people. That I lose sight of the intention all the time, but it's useful as a pole star. And along those lines, I've sometimes thought, I don't know if I have a big resistance to pain, but I've sometimes thought about getting, you know, some words tattooed on my wrist like, you know, don't be an asshole or just to remind me

• 28:29Dan Harris?

  not to be a jerk.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Intentions are powerful, though. The Buddha said karma is intention. And it's powerful.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Intention is powerful. Imagine if we didn't have those intentions, the intention to know our own minds, what it does, the intention to be kind. It would just go willy-nilly, all over the place. So intentions are really powerful. I remember once being in Burma, done some practice there, and met up with a beautiful nun who actually shaved my head on days where my head need to be shaved. I had ordained as a nun. And when I went to say goodbye to her, she was a very advanced practitioner. And I felt so honored to be in her presence. And she was also a medical doctor who's a nun.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And I was giving her all my medicines and my umbrella and other things that I was taking home with me. And I said, oh, I have this intention to give you these gifts, but they're so small. And she said, do not say that, Kamala. Do not say that's too small. Intention is powerful. Intention is powerful. And that went into me like, wow, like a beautiful, gentle lightning bolt. How important our intentions are in the world. And those things that we think that are small, you know, the morning thing that you say

• 30:11Speaker 01

  or anybody says about, may I be helpful today? May I try to be as kind and calm as possible? Those things are very, very powerful because it goes into your mindstream. And they're accessible, more and more accessible.

• 30:30Dan Harris?

  A question came up in my mind as I was listening to you talk there. In diversity discussions these days, there's often a line drawn between intention and impact. Because often people who look like me, white people, or especially men, are saying, well, I didn't mean for that to be harmful. And people will sometimes point out, well, maybe they won't say it doesn't matter what you meant, but it had an impact nonetheless. And so there is this big emphasis in Buddhism on intention being important. But I wonder where you come down on this. Debate between intention and impact.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up and want to go back to the Buddhist teaching about how intention is karma or karma is intention. And impact is a big part of karma. So we have to get nuanced here about this whole intention and impact thing. When we make the intention, we have to remember that's only half of the situation. And that is really important. That's only part of the situation. We do have this intention to be kind, do the best we can, but inadvertently, because we don't know a lot of things, even when we make those intentions, they land on people

• 31:50Speaker 01

  or on situations that causes something. So this is cause and effect relationship that we really need to understand. This is karma. We may have the intention, but how it lands in the world or on another person is something we need to pay attention to and make that part of our lives to say, oh, there was this intention, that is true. And I just want to point that out when I'm speaking to somebody, that that's my intention. But now I'm also learning that it has this impact on you and that impact on you is so important to me.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  So I want to pay attention to that impact on you and I don't want to make my intention an excuse. I'm learning that I don't always know how it's going to land on people. Now, I'm filling out all these words, Dan, but we can do that in a on-the-spot way too, you know, and just say, oh, I realize now that that landed in your heart in a way I didn't even think about. So what can we do about this? And to let that person know, which I have had to do in my own life, to let that person know that I'm sorry, and recently I had to do this with somebody fairly close to me

• 33:18Speaker 01

  in the colleagues that I have in the Dharma, that I'm really sorry that it landed and it affected you this way. It wasn't my intention, but it landed on you this way, and I'm really sorry for that. And that's really sincere. So when you have to get really nuanced about all of this with this intention and impact thing, and really point out the importance of impact when we're speaking to somebody who was impacted by what we did or said. And I'm at fault at that.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  I do that wrong a number of times where I don't, I don't think ahead sometimes. What would the impact be on that person? Because maybe I'm just so in the moment, or something just happened and I don't have time to think about it, or I don't have time to put what I call the Dharma duct tape on my mouth, and just not say anything, you know, it's going so fast. So we're gonna make a lot of mistakes, and mistakes meaning hurt people, and not have it intended. So yeah, the big question nowadays is for me is how can I bring just as much importance

• 34:39Speaker 01

  to understanding the impact as the importance we have given to understanding intention and motivation? It's a new world.

• 34:50Dan Harris?

  Yes, in many ways. So maybe the bottom line of what you're saying is that it's not an either or, both matter, intention and impact.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 35:00Dan Harris?

  Let me go back to karma, because I think longtime listeners of the show, or anybody who's spent any time in Buddhist circles will completely understand what you're talking about there. But I just do want to represent the newer listeners to the show, because hopefully, we're adding new listeners all the time. And they may say, well, what's this karmic stream stuff? What is this? Are we like, far out into the metaphysical soup here? Or what exactly do you mean when you use terms like karmic stream? I am, by the way, feigning skepticism. I'm completely personally comfortable with the term, but I do want to represent those who might not be.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, of course. Well, sometimes we think of karma as the cause and effect relationship, and like, what the cause might be that we said something or did something, and how it affects somebody out there. It does affect outwardly, you know, our words, and that affects people. But the person, or the mind, mind-heart, that holds that energy is inward. The effect of that is also inward. When there are intentions that are fulfilled, intentions, words, and actions that are said or done, there is a result

• 36:18Speaker 01

  of that in our own hearts and minds, not just out there. But the result of that, it's called resultant karma. There's a word for it, karma vipaka, that happens within our own hearts and minds that we carry. And that carrying is our own karmic stream. So that the actions, and words, and even thoughts that were harmful, there will be a result of that within us. And the result of that is feeling pleasant, unpleasant, or sometimes neutral. So the result of that is how we feel inside.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  We feel the result of that. The result of that might be felt outward too, but the karmic stream I'm talking about is what we feel inside when, say, we've harmed somebody. So let me give an example. If I shout to like my grandchildren, and of course, maybe I'm with the intention of not harming, of making sure that they don't get harmed. And that's my intention, like, "Don't touch that, it's hot." That is not kind of unwholesome karma. That is wholesome karma. And when I see that my grandchild is shocked or like maybe even hurt that I raised my voice, it's not like that's going into my mindstream

• 37:44Speaker 01

  as a resultant of unwholesome karmic action. That would not be unwholesome. But if I was harming a child, you know, like punishing a child and hitting the child and whatnot, and then somehow that registers in my own heart and mind. Maybe sometimes a person isn't even aware that it's registering. Of course, a lot of times that we aren't aware that it's registering. But that goes into our own heart and mind as part of the process of this human being evolving in this world. So that becomes part of our own mindstream.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  And it comes out in pleasant and unpleasant ways. I'm making it very simple. Not that I'm thinking I'm working with the simplistic minds here, but it would take a long time to talk about karma.

• 38:40Dan Harris?

  Karma 101 is very welcome here. So making it simple is totally fine. Let me go back to, we were talking earlier about things you can do to shave down the odds that you're going to not act out of equanimity.

• 38:58Dan Harris?

  In stressful situations, we talked about intentions. One other possible technique I wanted to run by you that I've played with a little bit on my end is metta practice or loving kindness practice where you might bring to mind somebody difficult and as frustrating as it may be, send them some good vibes in your meditation practice as a way to hopefully impact how you deal with them in real life. Does that land for you?

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one to continue on because I can't imagine that a good number of the listeners have done some metta practice. So it can be really useful. The way I would recommend it though, is to say, we have a situation and we know that this person is difficult for us. I try to reword that. It's not that this is a difficult person. It's that we're having difficulty with that person. So it would be better to start, as we do with the metta practice, start out with somebody that's easy first, to go there first. And especially if we've been hurt in some kind of interaction with that person, to go to ourselves first and send metta to ourselves.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Because oftentimes I find with myself and with other students that are doing metta practice, that going right to that person is like just kind of saying the words and not really feeling them. So starting out where we can practice some metta for ourselves and bring up somebody that we're easy with to do that, then do that. And sometimes if you just need to do it right away, to picture that person and have people around that person that you care for. So do that in a group. So you are including that person, but this is what Menindra taught me, to surround that person in a group.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And that is actually very doable for me.

• 40:57Dan Harris?

  Surround them with some human shields that

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes I even make the recommendation, surround them with your own benefactors or put your benefactors behind you. They're different kinds of tricks that we use.

• 41:14Dan Harris?

  I would love to hear you say more about how we can develop equanimity generally as a quality of mind. Are there specific meditation techniques that you think really work to build our capacity for equanimity?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  There are, you know, equanimity is one of the four Brahma Vihara's, one of the defined abodes or those practices. Say Metta, Metta's one, then compassion, sympathetic joy. Equanimity is the fourth one. And there are equanimity practices, but I just want to go to kind of like a daily level way that you can practice it. Say we're in a situation, you're one to one with somebody or you're in a small group and one self is feeling reactive and we feel it in ourselves. So what we might do is offer equanimity to ourselves first because we know we need to do something about the situation. And mostly we need to start right here.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  So one of the things that I do and still do is I remember equanimity. And in the beginning days, I would have to use an actual phrase that says, may I open to things as they are? Or may I open to this situation with balance? I'll just use the word balance instead of equanimity. Equanimity is too packed with misunderstandings sometimes. So may I open to this situation with balance? So that, you know, I can see all sides, basically. And I'm using open and balance in that. So I would normally send it first to myself. It's an option when you say, may I open to this situation with more balance?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  And then you might even say something, say you're in this situation, you might even say something to yourself like, may I know what to say? Or when to be quiet. I mean, all of those things occur to me without words. But you might need to put words to it because what you're really trying to handle is your own mind here, not necessarily the other person. So that's what you can do in the moment. It doesn't really help most of the time to try to send metta to that person in the moment. If it helps, great. Go for it if it helps to start sending metta to that person because your own mind is developing metta and you're doing the best you can to offer it.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  So of course, if that person's right in front of you and you think, I'm just going to send metta to this person, at least offering metta will take the place of whatever judgments or, you know, coming up or whatever comes up. So metta helps in that case. But actually, the first course of action could be making your mind kind of more open and balanced, you know, so that you can just take a breather in there and you don't have to do anything. Actually, you know, it was really helpful for me to take a course in equanimity from a Tibetan teacher. And in that particular course, you needed to practice equanimity first before practicing metta, before going on to the others.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  So I can see experientially how that can be so.

• 44:32Dan Harris?

  After the break, Kamala provides formal meditation constructions for equanimity practice and tells a personal story about a really challenging time in her own life during which she was so busy that she couldn't even sit down to meditate every day and how nonetheless she learned with the help of a great teacher to go very deep in her practice. Keep it here.

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• 45:56Dan Harris?

  If I heard you correctly, what you were describing there is a sort of a daily, I think you put it in the context of a kind of a daily thing that you can do. Would you be willing to describe in a little bit more detail? If we wanted to do equanimity practice formally, how would we do that? What does that look like? What are the instructions?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Well, usually it would start out in our tradition. It would start out with doing metta first, but you could go directly to equanimity. So one step to take is to, I'm going to put a little spot for Sharon. Sharon teaches equanimity beautifully. Sharon Salzberg. And I have equanimity online at Dharma Seed also. The way I teach it is I would teach metta first, to develop a heart of metta for yourself. And then, you know, go to the individual beings as we go through oneself, benefactor, dear friend, neutral person, and then difficult person. And then all beings. All beings is really helpful for a lot of people. So that then when we go from metta,

• 46:58Speaker 01

  usually when I teach equanimity, I do the first days of metta. And then we go on to equanimity, where we are developing equanimity with metta already in our hearts. So we're not going to do the metta practice. Now we're going to do the equanimity practice. And actually, equanimity, you know, it has these individuals that we go through. Equanimity starts with a neutral person because with that neutral person, we can more easily develop. Equanimity towards that person. So the phrases are different. The equanimity phrases are, they're more like statements. They're not offerings. They're more like statements of understanding.

• 47:39Speaker 01

  So in equanimity practice, we're understanding how to be equanimous within us so that we can understand with equanimity that person we are relating to. So one understanding would be, pleasure and pain arise and pass away. This is how it is. And there are other things like gain and sorrow arise and pass away. This is how it is in life. So in that way, these are phrases that have to do with wisdom, where we're coming to understand their deep meaning. So we start off using particular phrases. And maybe we use a phrase like, may you have balance in your life?

• 48:23Speaker 01

  And then maybe we go on to a benefactor. And we use a phrase like, birth and death are part of life. These are phrases that are very wisdom oriented. They're not like sending equanimity to that person. They're very oriented towards understanding that this is the way it is right now. So say now, next you go to a person that's close to you. And then you remember something about that person that they're going through that could be very difficult. And then you remember that situation, that person. And then you will say a phrase like,

• 49:08Speaker 01

  this is how it is in your life right now. This is how your life is unfolding. May I open to how it is in your life right now? And so you're always in your phrases developing that kind of wisdom that's going to align with how it really is in life. And this is what brings equanimity, that we're not reacting to it, that we're aligning in ever-deepening ways to the unfolding of life.

• 49:41Dan Harris?

  And I think that's what you mean when you say these are wisdom phrases because they direct us to the truth, however uncomfortable, hopefully in a way that allows us to relax into it. In terms of the instructions, I just want to repeat them back to you just to make sure I've got it. From what I heard, you would advise, you know, if we've got the time to start with some meta or loving kindness practice. So we might sit in a reasonably quiet place, close our eyes, bring to mind an easy person, envision this person or your dog or your cat, send them the classical phrases, which are often, you know, may be happy, may be safe, healthy, live with ease, move on to yourself, a mentor or benefactor, a neutral person, a difficult person, or a person with whom you're having difficulty, and then all beings. So, once the mind is tenderized

• 50:26Dan Harris?

  with a little bit of love and warmth, then you could move to this equanimity practice that you described, which would be, again, to call specific people to mind, maybe an easy person, yourself, and then go from there. And to say phrases that direct your mind and perhaps maybe as somewhat of an offering, the mind of the person who's your meta target or your equanimity target in the moment of gain and loss are inevitable, birth and death are inevitable, to put us into in this mind state of this is the way things are.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Right. You were really good at mentioning all of that, Dan. Yeah. So you reviewed it well. And you might even use the last phrase, which is sometimes hard for people to get. The last phrase has to do with karma, the actual traditional phrase, which is, "All beings are owners of their karma. Their happiness or unhappiness depends upon their actions and not upon my wishes. All beings are owners of their karma. Their happiness or unhappiness depends upon their actions and not upon my wishes." So I have shortened that phrase when I'm working in the

• 51:42Speaker 01

  equanimity practice with my own children, for example, to say, "All beings have their own journey." That's it. Because inwardly, I do understand that now my children are grown and seen them go through a lot. And I could never really control their journey as much as I tried, you know? And to say, "You have your own journey."

• 52:09Speaker 01

  And also included in that is a metta, I could say that you have your own journey and all beings have their own journey. Included in that is a deep understanding in my heart that I'll help you as much as I can and I know that the unfolding of your life is really beyond my control. So that's karma too, understanding of karma. So got woven together.

• 52:34Dan Harris?

  How does that work? Are you able to achieve some sort of equanimity when it comes to your own children?

• 52:39Speaker 01

  More.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  I have not been always equanimous with my children. That's true. I just have blown my top sometimes, but I never really harmed them physically, of course. And I know that's hard, you know, that it's really hard. It's really frustrating. I raised three children on my own when I was in my twenties. It was a hell realm. It's what sent me to the Dharma. So I really understand that it's not easy and we're gonna blow our top and we're gonna say things that we regret and hopefully, you know, we can overcome it and ask for forgiveness. But we're just human. That could be an equanimity phrase.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Remember that we're all just human.

• 53:29Dan Harris?

  It sounds to me also like a self-compassion phrase.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 53:34Dan Harris?

  When it comes to these four Brahma viharas or divine abodes, I'll admit that as a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic, when I first heard that term divine abodes, I was a little like, this sounds a little grandiose. But now I'm a dedicated practitioner of the metta, loving kindness, in particular, karuna or compassion, equanimity, upaka, and what's the fourth, mudita, sympathetic joy. I do my best to, I don't want to overstate my level of facility with these qualities, but I certainly try. But just to say, at the beginning, I was a little skeptical. And one thing that's interesting in the Buddhist tradition is that these qualities each have what are called a near enemy and a far enemy, meaning that there's the opposite of equanimity.

• 54:18Dan Harris?

  And then there's also this near enemy, which is something that masquerades as the real deal, but is a pitfall. Can you talk about the near and far enemies of equanimity?

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, short thing on the far enemies, which are called far enemies because you can see them from afar. And they're predominant, and they are attachment and aversion. Those things are easy to see, you know, when we're just kind of having judgments. And we know when we're attached to our point of view, or we really hate the other person's point of view, and other things too. So that is the far enemy. It comes in two pieces. And the near enemy has a lot to do with delusion. The far enemy with attachment aversion, the near enemy with delusion, because the near enemy is passivity, where you just feel really passive. You don't care. You don't even know it, but it's like you're not connected.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  You're really not connected with what's really happening. And so you kind of have a shield on you, and there's passivity. Or you say, "Yeah, I'm cool with this," but you're not really cool with it, kind of hiding behind all the layers of delusion that all of us have. And the passivity is like doing nothing. You feel just really passive about it. Some people say they feel numb about things that are happening with others or in the world, and I can understand. There's so much. So there's a numbness, there's a kind of disconnection. People say that too, when they can't feel what's really going on. So that's when you get to be a doormat,

• 55:57Speaker 01

  and people just can step all over you without, you know, you don't say anything about it. But equanimity is not passive. It's active. It can be responsive, but it knows when, has wisdom. Said that equanimity is very closely related to wisdom, to knowing, basically knowing what's beneficial, what leads to the end of suffering.

• 56:22Dan Harris?

  Another thing about equanimity, as I've been taught, is that it allows you to come close to other people's suffering, to keep your cool, so that you can be useful when people need you. Because if your mind is balanced, you're not freaking out in the face of somebody else freaking out, then that could serve you and other people really well.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. That's why I believe it was taught first, you know, in that Tibetan practice. We can always bring it along. You know, even you can make it be part of metta, too. Say, for example, somebody's difficult in our own hearts, and we're doing our best to sending metta to that person. "I offer you my goodwill, and things are just as they are." Just adding that equanimity phrase to it just says, "Doing the best I can, and things are just as they are right now." It's important to add that "right now" to that phrase, because it changes all the time.

• 57:14Dan Harris?

  So I've noticed.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah.

• 57:19Dan Harris?

  I do want to pick up on a phrase you used earlier. You said something about, in the face of difficult circumstances or people, the job is to handle your own mind. And I just think that's worth amplifying, because that's a massively empowering, and I think even liberating thing to teach people, which is that you can't take responsibility for everything that happens with somebody else, but you can take responsibility for your own mind.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. And if you really put our thoughts around it, it's like the impact that we can make with our energy, first of all, needs to be with ourselves, to look what's going on in our own minds, because that's what really can change. We really have the possibility of making change in the world, of course, but mostly the potential for change happens in here, in our own hearts. Doing those simple things, I've repeated several times, to know what's beneficial and to nurture that, to know what's not beneficial and to refrain from that. And... So when we can even know that much,

• 58:33Speaker 01

  we can act with a lot of power in the world. When going back to Manindra, he would say, I heard him say several times in different instances about how when there is a purity of the mind, even in the moment, you know, when there is no hatred, no greed, no delusion, or a lessening of that, the mind is very powerful. What it says, what it does, can have a great impact around us. Just the transmission of having a person like that in our presence, even that having a person like that is very powerful. So we can have a greater impact if we pay attention to what's going on inside.

• 59:14Dan Harris?

  Before I let you go, I want to, you talked about raising three children on your own, and that bring you to the Dharma. I suspect there are some people listening who are like, whoa, tell me more about that. How did you become such a deeply respected and experienced teacher in this very demanding discipline while raising three children? How did you get your practice time in at home?

• 59:44Speaker 01

  I practiced at home a lot because I couldn't go to retreats, but sometimes I could. And I told you, my first teacher was Manindraji. And a lot of you in the audience may have heard this story if you've listened to talks before. It's about how I learned how to practice at home, which was so important because practicing at home in my daily life, walking through the hallways, opening doors, washing dishes, helped me, when I went to my first retreat, be able to have continuity in my practice. So it was the continuity that really helped me. When I first came to the Dharma, I brought Manindra to Maui to teach a retreat. And so he did. And he came home with us and the three children.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Or did I have four at the time? No, I had three. So anyway, he said, do you sit every day? I said, no, I can't sit every day. And he said, well, what do you do? And I just, right away, I said, mostly what I... What I do is wash dishes. So he said, okay, let's go to the sink. So he stood right beside me as if we were under the Bodhi tree. And he taught me how to wash the dishes, like just when feeling the warm water, just no feeling, feeling or warmth, warmth, or what are you thinking now? He would ask me, I'm worrying, worrying, worrying. Okay, no worrying. We did all that. And then he said, do you do walking meditation? And I said, no. He said, well, where do you walk?

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  And I said, usually from the dining room to the bedroom and back forth. He said, let's go there. And we went there and he taught me how to do walking meditation every time I stepped in that hallway. So that's how I learned. And that's what I did for a long, long time. I took his advice and I did it. And then when I would go to sit, as soon as they gave the instructions, the mind would just take it in and I would just say, oh, okay, I'll do that. So I would just go to the breath, just be there. When it goes to something else, notice that, okay, come back to the breath, okay. I was so desperate, I would do anything. When I went to my first long retreat, it was a very, I could see it.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can practice, you know, I can really practice sitting down and being quiet. And yeah, it was really helpful to do that practice at home, everyday practice.

• 1:02:06Dan Harris?

  I think that story is going to be potentially extremely helpful and empowering for anybody with little kids at home or anybody who's feels that their life is too busy to do any sustained level of practice. We could just do it walking wherever we have to walk already and while doing whatever chores we have to do already. So it's really helpful.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  I'm glad.

• 1:02:26Dan Harris?

  Two final questions for you. One is, is there something I should have asked but didn't?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  I mean, I really wanted to be helpful to everybody. And I think I try to be as down to earth helpful as possible.

• 1:02:40Dan Harris?

  Well, now it's my turn to give a gold star because you absolutely were. And that leads me to my final, final question, which is, I assume people having listened may want to learn more from you. So do you have a website or any resources you've put out into the world that you would like to direct people to?

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yes, they can go to Dhamma Awareness, or they can go to the website, the Pasana Metta on Maui. I and my partner, Steve Armstrong, do every Wednesday, a sitting with people every Wednesday, and it's helpful. And then my retreats that I'm doing are on that website.

• 1:03:15Dan Harris?

  We'll put a link in the show notes for people listening.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:03:19Dan Harris?

  Kamala, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  You're welcome. Thank you, Dan. I appreciate the work you're doing. Gold star for you, too.

• 1:03:29Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Kamala. Love hanging out with her. Thanks as well to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

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