Upekkhā: A 12-Week Teaching Course

The Science and Practice of Equanimity

Course Overview

This comprehensive 12-week course integrates Buddhist contemplative wisdom with modern neuroscience to develop upekkhā (equanimity): the capacity to remain strong and serene regardless of circumstances. The course combines theoretical understanding with practical training to create lasting transformation.

Target Audience: Adults seeking to develop emotional regulation, stress resilience, and equanimity
Format: Weekly 2.5-hour sessions (recommended) or adaptable to other formats
Prerequisites: None, though basic meditation experience is helpful

Course Philosophy

The course follows three core principles:

  1. Understanding Before Practice — Deep comprehension of why practices work increases effectiveness and compliance
  2. Body Before Mind — Physiological regulation must precede cognitive techniques
  3. Practice Before Theory — Each session includes experiential components

12-Week Structure

PART I: FOUNDATIONS (Weeks 1-2)

Understanding the nature of consciousness, self, and emotional experience

PART II: THE STRESS RESPONSE (Weeks 3-4)

The neuroscience of stress, autonomic nervous system, and why we react

PART III: THE DIAGNOSTIC (Weeks 5-6)

Schemas, defense mechanisms, memory, and language that shape experience

PART IV: THE TOOLKIT (Weeks 7-10)

Practical interventions: nutrition, sleep, exercise, breathing, somatic awareness, meditation, and emotional regulation

PART V: INTEGRATION AND BEYOND (Weeks 11-12)

Applying equanimity to life, individual differences, purpose, and ānanda

Weekly Session Structure (2.5 hours)

Time Component Description
0:00-0:15 Opening Practice Guided breathing or body scan
0:15-0:30 Weekly Check-in Homework review, questions, sharing
0:30-1:15 Teaching Block 1 Core concept presentation
1:15-1:30 Break Mindful movement encouraged
1:30-2:00 Teaching Block 2 Deepening and application
2:00-2:20 Experiential Practice Hands-on technique practice
2:20-2:30 Closing & Homework Summary, weekly assignments

Detailed Week-by-Week Curriculum

WEEK 1: Consciousness and the Nature of Experience

Theme: Understanding what consciousness is and how experience arises

Learning Objectives

  • Understand consciousness as the witness of experience, not the generator
  • Distinguish between what arises in consciousness and consciousness itself
  • Experience the difference between narrative and experiential awareness
  • Recognize the constructed nature of experience

Core Concepts

  • The Two Arrows teaching (Sallatha Sutta)
  • Consciousness as the torch illuminating experience
  • Joseph LeDoux's hierarchy: biological → neurological → cognitive → conscious
  • The observer and the observed
  • Impermanence of mental states
  • Vedanā (feeling tones): pleasant, unpleasant, neutral

Key Researchers

  • Joseph LeDoux (NYU) — consciousness and emotional brain
  • Antonio Damasio — core self vs autobiographical self

Opening Story

The jungle kidnapping narrative — calm facing execution, panic facing email

Practice Components

  • Basic breath awareness meditation (15 min)
  • "Noticing the noticer" exercise
  • Feeling tone recognition practice

Homework

  • Daily 10-minute breath awareness practice
  • Vedanā journal: noting pleasant/unpleasant/neutral 3x daily
  • Read assigned chapter

Discussion Questions

  1. What is the difference between pain and suffering?
  2. Can you recall a time when your reaction to a situation was worse than the situation itself?
  3. What does it mean that consciousness "witnesses" but doesn't "generate"?

WEEK 2: The Constructed Self

Theme: Understanding how the self is built and how this creates suffering

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the self as process, not thing
  • Recognize the Default Mode Network and its role in self-construction
  • Experience multiple selves across contexts
  • Begin loosening identification with the self-story

Core Concepts

  • The narrative self vs core self (Damasio)
  • Default Mode Network and self-referential processing
  • Thomas Metzinger's phenomenal self-model
  • Multiple selves across contexts (William James)
  • Anattā (non-self) teaching
  • Self under stress: simplification vs rigidification

Key Researchers

  • Marcus Raichle (Washington U) — Default Mode Network
  • Antonio Damasio — autobiographical self
  • Matthew Killingsworth — mind-wandering research

Opening Story

The punctuality schema and what it cost

Practice Components

  • Meditation on "Who am I?"
  • Observing the self-narrator
  • Defusion exercise: "I am having the thought that…"

Homework

  • Daily meditation (15 min)
  • Notice when you defend your self-image
  • Journal: "Who am I in different contexts?"

Discussion Questions

  1. If the self is constructed, what remains when the construction stops?
  2. How much of your stress is about what happened vs what it means about you?
  3. Can you hold your self-story more lightly?

WEEK 3: The Evolution of Emotions

Theme: Why we feel what we feel and how emotions serve survival

Learning Objectives

  • Understand emotions as evolved action-organizing systems
  • Learn Panksepp's seven primary emotional systems
  • Understand the construction vs universal emotions debate
  • Recognize emotions as bodily processes

Core Concepts

  • Emotions as action organizers, not irrational noise
  • Panksepp's seven systems: SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, GRIEF, LUST, CARE, PLAY
  • Lisa Feldman Barrett's constructed emotion theory
  • Subcortical origin of emotions
  • Somatic markers and decision-making (Damasio)
  • Why body work comes first

Key Researchers

  • Jaak Panksepp — affective neuroscience
  • Lisa Feldman Barrett — constructed emotion
  • Antonio Damasio — somatic marker hypothesis

Opening Story

Grandfather's stoicism and what it actually meant

Practice Components

  • Body mapping of emotions
  • Tracking emotional signatures in the body
  • Breath awareness during simulated emotional activation

Homework

  • Continue daily meditation (15 min)
  • Emotion-body journal: where do you feel each emotion?
  • Notice emotional urges before acting on them

Discussion Questions

  1. How do emotions serve you? How do they mislead you?
  2. If emotions are bodily processes, what changes about how you work with them?
  3. What's the difference between feeling an emotion and being controlled by it?

WEEK 4: The Neurology of Stress

Theme: Understanding the brain's threat detection and response systems

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the amygdala hijack mechanism
  • Learn the timing gap between amygdala and prefrontal cortex
  • Understand how chronic stress damages the hippocampus
  • Recognize Default Mode Network rumination patterns

Core Concepts

  • Amygdala: the alarm system (low road vs high road)
  • Timing: amygdala 12-25ms vs prefrontal 500-800ms
  • Hippocampus: context and memory, vulnerable to cortisol
  • Prefrontal cortex: the conductor that goes offline under stress
  • Default Mode Network as rumination generator
  • Neuroplasticity: the elastic brain

Key Researchers

  • Joseph LeDoux (NYU) — amygdala and fear
  • Amy Arnsten (Yale) — stress and prefrontal function
  • Robert Sapolsky (Stanford) — cortisol and hippocampus
  • Judson Brewer (Brown) — meditation and DMN

Opening Story

The Singapore hotel lobby meltdown

Practice Components

  • Timeline of a hijack demonstration
  • Identifying personal hijack patterns
  • "Interrupt the cascade" breathing technique

Homework

  • Daily meditation (20 min)
  • Hijack journal: what triggered you, what was the timeline?
  • Practice extended exhale when noticing early activation

Discussion Questions

  1. Why can't you "think your way" to calm once hijacked?
  2. What is your personal hijack signature?
  3. How does understanding the neurology change your self-judgment about reactions?

WEEK 5: The Autonomic Nervous System

Theme: The three states and how to shift between them

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the three autonomic states (polyvagal framework)
  • Learn about vagal tone and HRV
  • Understand neuroception and safety cues
  • Recognize breathing as the bridge between voluntary and involuntary

Core Concepts

  • Sympathetic (fight-flight) vs parasympathetic (rest-digest)
  • Three states: immobilization (freeze), mobilization (fight-flight), social engagement
  • Stephen Porges and polyvagal theory (with caveats)
  • The vagus nerve and vagal tone
  • Heart rate variability as biomarker
  • Neuroception: unconscious safety/threat detection
  • Respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Key Researchers

  • Stephen Porges (Indiana) — polyvagal theory
  • Paul Lehrer (Rutgers) — resonance frequency breathing

Opening Story

Dad's ECG, the nurse's observation about your heart

Practice Components

  • Recognizing your current autonomic state
  • Vagal toning exercises
  • Introduction to resonance frequency breathing

Homework

  • Daily resonance frequency breathing (15 min)
  • State awareness: which state are you in throughout the day?
  • Notice what shifts your state (up and down)

Discussion Questions

  1. Can you recognize the freeze state in yourself or others?
  2. What safety cues calm your nervous system?
  3. How does breathing change your autonomic state?

WEEK 6: Schemas, Defenses, and Memory

Theme: Understanding the mental structures that shape perception

Learning Objectives

  • Understand schemas and how they maintain themselves
  • Recognize common defense mechanisms
  • Learn how emotional memories form and persist
  • Understand memory reconsolidation as opportunity

Core Concepts

  • Schemas as mental filters (Jeffrey Young's schema therapy)
  • The four mechanisms of schema maintenance
  • George Vaillant's hierarchy of defenses
  • Emotional memory and the amygdala
  • Fear conditioning and why fears persist
  • Memory reconsolidation (Karim Nader's research)
  • Sleep and memory consolidation

Key Researchers

  • Jeffrey Young — schema therapy
  • George Vaillant — defense mechanisms
  • Karim Nader — memory reconsolidation
  • Joseph LeDoux — emotional memory

Opening Story

"I am not enough" — the schema that ran for decades

Practice Components

  • Schema identification exercise
  • Defense mechanism recognition
  • Memory reconsolidation protocol introduction

Homework

  • Continue breathing practice
  • Identify your core schemas
  • Notice defense mechanisms in action
  • Journal about recurring patterns

Discussion Questions

  1. What schemas were useful in childhood but limit you now?
  2. How do your defenses protect you? What do they cost?
  3. If memories can be modified, what does this mean for trauma?

WEEK 7: The Foundation — Nutrition and Sleep

Theme: The physiological prerequisites for emotional regulation

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how blood sugar affects mood and reactivity
  • Learn the gut-brain connection
  • Understand sleep architecture and why it matters
  • Implement foundational changes

Core Concepts

  • Blood sugar volatility and "anxiety"
  • Protein and neurotransmitter synthesis
  • Gut microbiome and mental health
  • Inflammation and emotional regulation
  • Sleep architecture: deep sleep and REM
  • What sleep deprivation does to emotional regulation
  • Sleep hygiene essentials

Key Researchers

  • Matthew Walker (UC Berkeley) — sleep science
  • Maiken Nedergaard — glymphatic system

Opening Story

Evening anxiety that was actually blood sugar crash

Practice Components

  • Blood sugar stabilization strategies
  • Sleep hygiene audit
  • Creating a sleep sanctuary

Homework

  • Implement one nutrition change
  • Complete sleep hygiene checklist
  • Track sleep quality and morning mood
  • Continue breathing practice

Discussion Questions

  1. How might your eating patterns be affecting your mood?
  2. What is stealing your sleep?
  3. Are you treating nutritional/sleep problems as psychological ones?

WEEK 8: Exercise and Breathing

Theme: Using the body to change the mind

Learning Objectives

  • Understand how exercise builds stress resilience
  • Learn the VO2 max connection to emotional regulation
  • Master resonance frequency breathing
  • Understand the chemistry of breath

Core Concepts

  • Exercise as stress hormone depletion
  • BDNF and neuroplasticity
  • VO2 max and stress resilience
  • Zone 2 training and intervals
  • Respiratory sinus arrhythmia
  • Finding your resonance frequency
  • CO2 tolerance and the Bohr effect
  • Nasal breathing benefits

Key Researchers

  • Paul Lehrer — resonance frequency breathing
  • Patrick McKeown — oxygen advantage
  • Richard Gevirtz — HRV biofeedback

Opening Story

Weight training at 44 and learning to tolerate discomfort

Practice Components

  • Finding your resonance frequency
  • Box breathing
  • Physiological sigh technique
  • Extended exhale for acute calming

Homework

  • Daily resonance frequency breathing (20 min)
  • Add one form of challenging exercise
  • Practice cold water exposure (brief)
  • Track HRV if possible

Discussion Questions

  1. How can physical challenge teach emotional regulation?
  2. What's your resonance frequency?
  3. How does your breath change with your emotional state?

WEEK 9: Somatic Awareness and Meditation

Theme: Developing interoception and training attention

Learning Objectives

  • Develop fine-grained body awareness
  • Understand the neuroscience of meditation
  • Learn different meditation approaches
  • Establish sustainable practice

Core Concepts

  • Interoception as the foundation of emotional awareness
  • Body scanning practice
  • William James and the primacy of body
  • Brain changes from meditation (Lazar, Hölzel)
  • Different meditation styles and their effects
  • From altered states to altered traits
  • The caveats in meditation research

Key Researchers

  • Sara Lazar (Harvard) — meditation and cortical thickness
  • Britta Hölzel (Harvard) — 8-week changes
  • Richard Davidson (Wisconsin) — long-term practitioners
  • Judson Brewer (Brown) — DMN and meditation

Opening Story

Treating the body as a vehicle vs being the body

Practice Components

  • Full body scan (30 min)
  • Emotion mapping in the body
  • Seated meditation instruction
  • Walking meditation

Homework

  • Daily meditation (25 min)
  • Body scan 3x weekly
  • Notice emotions in the body before naming them
  • Practice turning toward discomfort

Discussion Questions

  1. What parts of your body can you feel clearly? What's numb?
  2. How does somatic awareness change your relationship to emotions?
  3. What's the difference between thinking about sensations and feeling them?

WEEK 10: Nervous System Regulation and Emotional Tools

Theme: Practical protocols for real-life application

Learning Objectives

  • Master the nervous system regulation protocols
  • Learn the RAIN protocol for difficult emotions
  • Understand affect labeling and cognitive reappraisal
  • Develop personal triggers and routines

Core Concepts

  • Cold exposure as autonomic training
  • The six principles of working with hijacks
  • Creating personal triggers (Pavlovian conditioning for calm)
  • Condensing routines (Josh Waitzkin's approach)
  • The RAIN protocol (Tara Brach)
  • Affect labeling research
  • Cognitive reappraisal (Kevin Ochsner)
  • Creating your temple

Key Researchers

  • Kevin Ochsner (Columbia) — emotion reappraisal
  • Tara Brach — RAIN protocol
  • Andrew Huberman — physiological sigh

Opening Story

Teaching my son to stand in cold water

Practice Components

  • RAIN protocol application
  • Creating a personal trigger
  • Progressive challenge planning
  • Situation-specific practice design

Homework

  • Daily practice (25 min breathing + meditation)
  • Apply RAIN to one difficult emotion daily
  • Practice trigger in calm state
  • Identify your top 3 trigger situations

Discussion Questions

  1. What's your personal trigger for shifting state?
  2. How do you apply these tools when actually triggered?
  3. What would investment in loss look like for you?

WEEK 11: The Nature of Upekkhā and Individual Differences

Theme: Understanding equanimity and personalizing your path

Learning Objectives

  • Understand what upekkhā is and is not
  • Recognize individual differences in temperament and history
  • Create personalized protocol
  • Understand attachment styles and their effects

Core Concepts

  • Upekkhā defined: not indifference, suppression, passivity, or bypassing
  • The three layers: physiological, psychological, spiritual
  • Temperament differences (high-reactive vs low-reactive)
  • Trauma-sensitive modifications
  • Chronotype and timing
  • Attachment styles and practice
  • Creating personal protocol

Key Researchers

  • John Bowlby — attachment theory
  • Bessel van der Kolk — trauma and the body

Opening Story

The morning of catastrophe and what upekkhā looks like in action

Practice Components

  • Self-assessment exercises
  • Protocol design workshop
  • Identifying personal needs and priorities
  • Adapting practices to individual differences

Homework

  • Complete self-assessment
  • Design draft personal protocol
  • Continue daily practice
  • Prepare for final week integration

Discussion Questions

  1. What is upekkhā NOT?
  2. What individual factors shape your path?
  3. What minimum practice can you sustain long-term?

WEEK 12: Integration, Purpose, and Ānanda

Theme: From practice to life, and the joy beyond equanimity

Learning Objectives

  • Understand ānanda as what's revealed when reactivity clears
  • Clarify personal purpose through the lens of agency
  • Learn integration strategies for daily life
  • Establish sustainable long-term practice

Core Concepts

  • Ānanda: the joy beyond equanimity
  • From absence to presence
  • Purpose as mastery of mind, body, and time
  • The four pillars (self, family, work, society)
  • Sankalp: solemn intention
  • The transfer problem and progressive challenge
  • Relapse and recovery
  • Connection and social baseline theory
  • The never-ending path

Key Researchers

  • Victor Strecher (Michigan) — purpose and health
  • James Coan (Virginia) — social baseline theory
  • Steve Cole (UCLA) — loneliness and gene expression

Opening Story

"Papa, once you're calm, then what?"

Practice Components

  • Purpose clarification exercise
  • Sankalp setting
  • Integration planning
  • Long-term practice commitment

Homework (Ongoing)

  • Implement personal protocol
  • Monthly review and adjustment
  • Connect with practice community
  • Share what you've learned

Discussion Questions

  1. Once you're calm, then what?
  2. What do you have agency over?
  3. What is the purpose of your life?

Assessment and Evaluation

Formative Assessment (Ongoing)

Summative Assessment (End of Course)

Materials Required

For Instructors

For Participants

Recommended Reading

Primary Text:

Supplementary:

Instructor Qualifications

Recommended background:

Adaptations

Shorter Format (6-Week Intensive)

Online Format

One-on-One Format