Equanimity and the Long-Lined Poem (V)

In these days of environmental, military, social, and—for some—personal upheaval, the feeling of equanimity can be illusive. The Buddha said that if we want to be happy, we need to be able to stand like a great tree amid praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow. We’ll look at a forest of such trees comprised of ancient and contemporary poems that manage to convey equanimity—not by looking away, but by seeing clearly and articulating that seeing onto the page. We’ll consider various approaches and begin the creative process of writing our own equanimous poems.