The uplifting or energizing qualities of mind/heart are balanced with three stabilizing qualities: Calm or Tranquility, Concentration and Equanimity.

Calm is the Fifth Factor of Awakening, the first stabilizing quality. We tend to overlook the mind’s capacity to settle down, rest, and be deeply silent and calm. This stillness offers tranquility and power, developed from meditation practice sustained by persistent discipline and deep kindness for ourselves. In stillness we learn to attend and listen more fully, to the wisdom of our own hearts and the world around us. We support this quality of calm, of tranquility, by fostering, through attention to the breath in the body, inner ease and restfulness. The power of this is often undervalued in our modern day busy-ness.

It is possible for the mind and heart to come to rest (through the culmination of steady practice) in the midst of troubles and the mind storms we create from them. The most direct way is by learning to let go of the domination of our likes and dislikes and to live awake in the reality, the truth of each moment, just as it is. This means we let go of the insistent controller who dwells in desires and fantasies for the future, regrets of the past, and requiring things be different now. This is supportive ground for responsive equanimity. When we understand the perfection of things as they are, tranquility emerges, even in the midst of difficulties. “Peace,” the Buddha said, “is the highest happiness.”