Enjoying Serenity and Tranquility
Photo by Johannes Plenio
In the third talk in a series on the Eight Awarenesses of Enlightened Beings, Zuisei speaks on the third awareness: enjoying serenity and tranquility.
Serenity, or equanimity, is a quality that the Buddha spoke of frequently. As a state of mind that fosters non-attachment, equanimity gives us the ability to be grounded, stable, and capable of holding the totality of our experience, whatever that is.
Being equanimous doesn’t mean not feeling or not caring. On the contrary, it encourages us to care deeply without being disturbed by that caring. It means not being in conflict with one’s thoughts and emotions, with adverse circumstances, with others. Fundamentally, it comes from seeing others as ourselves.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Enjoying Serenity and Tranquility
The Buddha said:
If you seek joy and peace in the serenity and tranquility of non-doing, you should keep away from disturbances and dwell alone in a quiet place. Those who dwell in quiet places are praised by Sakrendra, chief of the gods, and by celestial beings. Therefore, casting away attachment to yourself and others, dwell alone in a quiet place and contemplate the cause of suffering… To liberate oneself from complicated involvements is called ‘non-attachment.’
I’ve been speaking of the eight awarenesses of an enlightened being. From the perspective of the Mahayana tradition, this was the Buddha’s last teaching. This is the third awareness: enjoying serenity and tranquility. The first is having few desires, and the second is knowing how to be satisfied. These build on one another. Desiring little of what we don’t have, we don’t crave; craving is the cause of suffering. Being satisfied with what we do have, we are at peace and are able to enjoy serenity and tranquility. We are able to keep away from disturbances and dwell alone in a quiet place—even in the midst of large crowds or noisy spaces.
Serenity, or equanimity, is one of the ten paramis (paramitas in Sanskrit)—the perfections or virtuous qualities of a bodhisattva, an enlightenment being. Equanimity is also the fourth of the Four Immeasurables: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. It is, in other words, a key quality of a practitioner traveling the path to awakening. We could also say it is one of the byproducts of practice, a result of the path. And it’s a result that appears not only at the end, but can be present at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end.
It is also considered one of the three factors of consciousness: samadhi (concentration) is the sharpening factor, (sati) mindfulness is the seeing factor, and (upeksha) equanimity is the balancing factor.
Traditionally, equanimity is understood as a state in which neither aversion nor attachment arises. Its characteristic is neutrality. Its function is to see things impartially, without preference. But let me clarify: this doesn’t mean aversion or attachment never arise. They do, from time to time. Enjoying serenity means we don’t get thrown by them. We see a moment of clinging, a moment of anger, a moment of fear.
Being equanimous doesn’t mean not feeling or not caring. It means caring deeply, but not being disturbed by that caring. It means not being in conflict with one’s thoughts and emotions. Not being in conflict with circumstances that sometimes are good, sometimes not. Not being in conflict with others—not seeing others as separate, but as my own body. We’re not at odds with our hand or our spleen; they’re part of us. In the same way, you are part of me, I am part of you. Dwelling alone means dwelling “all one.”
It means when you sit, leave no one out. Because we can’t. We can ignore or turn away, but we can’t actually leave anyone out. Because there is no “out,” no “other.”
So we could say that serenity and tranquility rest on a clear understanding of the unity, identity, and equality of all things. But given that we live in a world of differences—a world of ups and downs, grief and joy, pleasure and pain, division and inequality—how do we attain true serenity?
First, by non-doing, the Buddha says. By secluding ourselves so we can realize ourselves. Let things be uncomplicated so you can be free. He was saying: let things be simple, uncomplicated, free.
In zazen we are sitting and doing nothing. There is a stopping of the constant creation and proliferation of thoughts. There is knowing when it is necessary to speak and act, and when to be still and silent. This is, in my view, one of the greatest abilities we have: to be still and silent.
We know how to make much; we are not so good at not-making—what the Buddha called the “I-making and mine-making” that leads to endless complications and suffering.
Dwelling alone means dwelling “all one”
And when difficult things come up, some say that’s when they can’t practice. But this is a very important time to practice. Otherwise, it’s like driving with a blindfold on. He is saying: become quiet. And learn to do only one thing at a time, not trying to multitask and do many things at once.
There is also non-doing of another kind: getting so close to the activity that the doing disappears, like a top spinning in perfect balance. It is moving so effortlessly that it seems not to move at all. There is running—and only running. And then there is running, but not knowing you are running. The whole universe runs, and there is no one there to know about running.
But how do we find tranquility in a world and with minds, that seem anything but calm? How do we enjoy serenity in a world that is terribly complicated and hard to understand?
If we trust that the Buddha’s teachings are accurate, if we believe that when he spoke about suffering, he was speaking of universal, human-created suffering, then we must also believe that what he spoke of 2,500 years ago is still relevant today—even though the world may look a little different.
Suffering is suffering. And if we understand it correctly—if we have the right view—then its alleviation also follows. There is the truth of suffering, and there is a path to its cessation: the Noble Eightfold Path, true regardless of time or place.
And yet, one of you brought up something recently that got me thinking: the idea of white liberation and black liberation. What is that? I asked myself. Is there such a thing? Is there such a thing as female liberation? Male liberation? Gay, straight, transgender liberation?
Let things be uncomplicated so you can be free
Now, liberation—nirvana—in its classical definition, is cessation. It is putting an end to the round of rebirth. It is understanding how we come into being through the chain of dependent origination: aging and death arise from birth, from becoming, from clinging, from craving, from feeling, from contact, from name-and-form, from consciousness—a cycle endlessly repeated. But this is a difficult teaching to understand. There is a story in which Ananda told the Buddha that this explanation was so thorough he understood it completely. And the Buddha replied, “Don’t say that. It can take lifetimes to grasp this teaching.”
A fully enlightened being understands how to break that chain, how to see through these loops, how they connect with one another to create a cycle. Understanding this, they know how not to take another birth and thus to be free of suffering—unless that Buddha chooses to return to the world for the sake of others, to teach and to serve. But that is their choice. A fully enlightened being has realized the Unbinding.
So nirvana is cessation, and it is liberation independent of circumstances—unconditioned. It is not white or black, male or female; it has no gender, no identity, no preference, no race, no class, no religion. It is not dependent on intelligence or ability. It cannot be willed or produced; it can only be realized. And all of us, if we have human birth, are able and have the capacity to do that.
At the same time, we live and act in the relative world, the world of conditions. My understanding of the dharma is shaped by my experience, which is different from yours. And so, how and whether I arrive at universal liberation is necessarily affected by my circumstances.
I was speaking to a friend working to stop human trafficking. For the people she works with, liberation is not freedom from rebirth or realization of no-self. It is quite literally coming out of bondage—having a roof over their heads, enough money to eat a meal, practical, personal liberation. In other words, the obstacles each of us must overcome to arrive at true freedom differ greatly. The types of suffering we experience are also very different. Although sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, and other forms of oppression affect all of us—both oppressor and oppressed—they do not affect us equally. As a white woman, I simply don’t experience suffering in the same way as a young Black man, or a gay man, or a quadriplegic.
Yet I don’t think we’ll be able to fulfill our vow to save all sentient beings—let alone enjoy serenity and tranquility—until Black liberation is just as possible as white liberation, until female, transgender, and differently-abled liberation are just as possible.
In the sutras, it still says that to become enlightened you must be a man and a monk. For some time now, women and lay practitioners have been proving otherwise. But the karma of those teachings is our karma—the baggage we still carry and must contend with.
Zen still has an image—an image I’d like to turn on its head—that it is male (in this country, white), patriarchal, tough to the point of being macho, and somewhat cold. Zen is none of those things. Zen is the study of the self; it is the realization of the self. But it has taken on the karma and shape of our culture, our world.
At the monastery, we hold sesshin every month with about 95 participants. Ninety-five percent of them are white. For residency, it is not unusual to have twice as many men as women, usually young men. There’s a reason for this: we’ve created a structure, a language, a system that perpetuates old patterns. And I don’t see how we can truly enjoy serenity and tranquility until we address this. How? By creating new language, new systems. By dismantling the old ones and ensuring we don’t keep re-creating them. By making sure that true, liberating teachings don’t get corrupted or twisted into dogma.
We’ve been incorporating women ancestors into our liturgy and teachings more and more. We’ve asked a craftsman to create new statues for our altar to sit alongside the Buddha—one of Prajñaparamita, the womb of all Buddhas, and one of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion.
There’s a story I like to tell of a Christian monastery where one of the main practices of the monks was copying scriptures. The monastery got a new abbot, who realized they were copying from copies. He asked, “Why aren’t you using the originals?” Someone said, “We never touch them. They’re locked away in the library.” So one day he decided to look at them. He wasn’t seen for two days. When someone finally went to find him, they found him disheveled, unshaven, staring at a book. “The word was celebrate!” he said.
If you don’t get that, ask someone later.
I know what I’m saying is not new. In fact, it’s embarrassing how not new it is. Like the New Yorker cartoon of a man in the back of a cave with a huge stone wheel. In the front stands his wife, talking with a friend. She says: “He’s not reinventing it—he’s making it great again.”
We don’t have to do either.
What we do need is clarity, courage, and determination. And we need each other. Especially the voices that aren’t normally heard, because they have the most to teach us about doing things differently. In other words, we need sangha—a community of good friends, of noble friends.
As I told the residents the other day, Sangha isn’t just a group of like-minded people, not just buddies (though we can be). We are practitioners of the dharma who, by joining the sangha, have made a commitment to help each other wake up.
It might be easier to go away on a long retreat. Yet we’re not doing that. And for this too, there’s a reason. There’s a reason we sit alone; there’s a reason we sit together.
In the Upaddha Sutta, Ananda says to the Buddha:
“This is half of the holy life, Lord: good friendship, good companionship, and good camaraderie.”
The Buddha replied: “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Good friendship, good companionship, and good camaraderie are actually the whole of the holy life. When a student of the way has good friends, companions, and comrades, they can be expected to develop and pursue the Noble Eightfold Path.” They can expect to practice the path to awakening. They can expect support, guidance, and companionship—both when the sailing is smooth and when the sea is so rough we can’t distinguish it from the sky. That is what we do for each other.
The irony and mystery of practice is that we often begin thinking we’ll take care of our own pain and suffering. Very quickly we discover that taking care of others is exactly the right medicine. It is exactly what we need to heal a mind that is tired, confused, or angry. By taking care, I don’t mean anything complicated. I don’t mean ignoring yourself either. I mean turning toward another when it feels like the last thing you can or want to do.
This is the wonderful thing about living in Sangha. You may be in the midst of the darkest funk, and a guest arrives. You can hide, or you can sit down and have dinner with them. You make small talk. They ask you, “How did you begin to practice?” You begin to tell your story, you warm to it, and before long you feel fine. In fact, you feel pretty good—you realize what a nice surprise it is.
So if you live alone, come when you’re in a funk. Come sit. Come help us cook a meal or clean a bathroom. Put your body to work and let your mind rest. That is the most effective self-care. Ask someone how they’re doing, listen with attention, with care, even with love.
When the Buddha said, “Be a refuge unto yourselves,” he didn’t mean go solo. He meant: Be a refuge so large that no one will be left out—not from your mind, your heart, your awareness.
Liberation is our birthright—each and every one of us. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, when it feels far away, when it feels impossible. The fact that it’s universal means there is no point at which it is missing. We just need to bring it to life. That is the work of a lifetime. Not just the work of the cushion—that’s the easy part (after a while). The work is to bring it to bloom in the world of differences, in a world that seems divided.
We must keep realizing that the world isn’t really divided. When we divide it, we are not seeing clearly. But we can see. We can always see a little bit more.
Enjoying Serenity and Tranquility, a Dharma Talk by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
Explore further