When things get really difficult, and we are faced with challenges that seem beyond us, whether violence, anger, uncertainty, helplessness, sickness, and other possible slings and arrows, it is hard to keep our centre and stay steady. Yet we need it more than ever so as not to be swept away, to be able to make wise decisions, to plant seeds for the benefit of us and others and to be helpful. This is where the Buddhist teachings and practices of equanimity are really important. This is the capacity to meet such challenges head-on, without being knocked over by them. Instead of shutting down, covering over, avoiding denying, or building dramas out of difficult experiences, we meet them but they don't take us over. This is practised by meeting pleasant and unpleasant experiences repeatedly, in meditation and in life, and watching them arise and pass as visitors. We develop the capacity not to carry everything on our shoulders, but to drop stuff on the way. Equanimity arises from a bigger, less personal view of things, a life point of view, and more space in the consciousness to absorb experiences as they arise and pass.

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