Part 1 - Equanimity meditation

a. The purpose of equanimity meditation

Now, as to how to meditate, we purely and definitely concern ourselves with these alone. However, as for there being completely fixed approach:

These do not have to be practiced in any one fixed order,
But, even so, beginners should start with equanimity.
Having equalized any prejudicial bias,
Then they should meditate upon the other three.

First we should compose ourselves, putting ourselves at ease. This is because if we do not bring all biases into equanimity, it is difficult for the other three immeasurables to arise. Therefore, first we meditate on equanimity. The master Jñanagarbha says in his Ornament of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka-alankara):

Crossing with equanimity to the land of goodness,
Like a meadow covered with blossoming flowers of kindness,
Well-adorned with the cooling protective shade of compassion.
The water of joy will be pure, and not disturbed or muddied.

However, the Two Segments says:

First meditate on kindness,
Second, turn to compassion
Third, meditate on joy,
And, last of all, equanimity.

This last is from the viewpoint of teachers already joined with inner divine suchness. For them it is easy first to produce the arising of the other three, kindness and so forth. The other is in order to first make the nature of the three, kindness and so forth, arise easily.

b. The meditation object of equanimity 

Now, to explain equanimity meditation:

Since the meditational object is all sentient beings,
You should examine your mind, to see what it is like.
If you love your mother and father and your friends,
But hate your enemies, your attitude is bad.

When it is like that, there is no sentient being that is not made into an enemy or friend, so that love or hate arises toward them. That is not right. Why?

c. Remembering kindness with equanimity

In samsara:

While we have been wandering without beginning or end,
These enemies were our fathers, mothers and relatives.
They were formerly friendly and gave their help to us.
Shall we now cultivate malice as a return for their kindness?

It is not right to repay with harm those who formerly benefited us. The Vinaya Scriptures say:

Returning good for good is excellent.
Returning harm or indifference is not right.

d. Equanimity meditation on uncertainty

For many generations:

Also these friends were enemies and did us harm.
Even now that pain is still infecting us.
How can it be right to repay this with benefit?
Those who now are neither, once were both friends and foes.
Where benefit and harm are without any certainty,
Either loving and hating is inappropriate.

If it is not right to benefit an enemy who has done us harm, our friends in former generations did us harm. Even  now, as  a result,  suffering still  defiles us. Just this  produces our  loving and hating. Why repay that with benefit? As for beings who are indifferent to us now, if we think about it, whether they did us benefit or harm before or which they may do later is not certain. Therefore we should produce equanimity for those for whom we have a positive or negative bias. The Prajñaparamita in Twenty Thousand Verses says:

Subhuti, all  sentient  beings  are  mutually  equal,  and  you  should  produce  an  attitude  of equanimity.

e. The meditation on equanimity

For this reason:

Therefore, start by regarding friends and relatives
With neither love nor hate, just like those who are neutral.
Then giving up hatred, you should be neutral to enemies.
When this is done, then prejudice is non-existent.

Thus equalize friends and enemies as indifferent.

f. Equanimity meditation to benefit sentient beings

To be rid of the mental darkness that comes from fixating neutrality,
With a mind that clears away kleshas for beings into equality,
Meditate on phenomena in freedom from samsara.

May our kleshas come to be completely pacified with regard to all sentient beings, starting with our enemies and friends. May love and hate never arise. May our minds all become mutually workable.

g. Equanimity about getting and losing, by meditating on them as one

Why do this?

All want happiness and want to eliminate suffering,
But their ignorance is involved with the cause of suffering.

We feel joy when we are happy and do not desire what is painful. All beings are like that, so how can malevolence toward them be appropriate? Desire, even desire for happiness, is a cause of suffering. We should eliminate involvement with this bad approach.

h. The main object of equanimity

Kye ma! If only the draining host of kleshas were pacified,
With all their habitual patterns, and mind were equalized.
May embodied beings, tormented by violent loves and hatreds,
Turn bias to equanimity, free from love and hate.

May all the  kleshas of sentient beings be pacified.  In particular, after the fires of love and hate are pacified, without preferential bias, may our minds become workable.

i. Expanding the object of equanimity

Having contemplated one being in this way,
Then go further, and do the same with two or three.
Go on to a country, and then again to a continent.
Then, having contemplated all the four continents,
Try one or two thousand worlds, and then consider them all.
The training is complete when self is the same as other,
And enemies and friends are seen with equality.

Beginners should meditate on equanimity towards friends and enemies until that is accomplished. Then from one, two, and three beings and so forth, go on to your town and then your country, its continent, and finally all of this world Jambuling.  Then, from the continents of Videha and so forth, go further and meditate on a thousand worlds, two and three thousand, and all the world systems. Also first meditate on human beings, and then on animals and so forth as being equal.

j. The measure of having trained in equanimity within our being

Within our being:

The training is completed when oneself and others,
Or enemies and friends, are seen in equality.

For anyone who has attained this attitude, jealousy and enmity will not arise.  They will be hindered by the arising of equality/equanimity.

k. Post-meditation in equanimity meditation

Then after a session of meditating with that object of equanimity:

Then go on to the equanimity without object.
Everything is mind, whose nature is like the sky.
Rest in this emptiness, the unborn absolute,
Free from complexities of mental phenomena.

The objects to be meditated upon, these appearances of sentient beings, are like a reflection, appearing while they do not exist, unborn by nature. Rest in mindfulness of this. Though we are attached to the skandhas as being grasped objects and a fixating ego that is other than these, both are false.

This is like thinking that a reflection in a mirror is a face. What does not exist appears, depending on the skandhas. The Precious Garland says:

In dependence on a shining mirror
Oneself and others may appear reflected;
Nevertheless, in actuality,
These images do not exist at all.

Likewise, in dependence on the skandhas,
An ego is perceived and firmly grasped;
But like the reflected image of a face,
Really it does not exist at all.

As without depending on a mirror,
No reflected natures will appear,
When there is no dependence on the skandhas,
Ego-grasping too will be like that.

If our natural skandhas are grasped as a self, karma exists. From karma birth exists, so by intervals old age and death will also exist. When we do not grasp the skandhas, all this is eliminated. The same text says:

As long as there is any grasping of the skandhas, 
So long will they be grasped as truly having an ego.
If there is ego-grasping, there is also karma.
As a result of that, there also will be birth.

The three kinds of action^[1] have no beginning, end, or middle.
The mandala of samsara, like the apparent wheel
That is formed by the whirling of a fire-brand,
Is a thing of mutual causes, and as such it turns.

It could not be established from itself, another, or both; 
Nor could it be established from the three divisions of time.
Therefore the ego-grasper is completely exhausted.
That will also be the case for birth and karma.

In that way, having seen the rising of cause and effect,
And also having seen the way they are exhausted,
in reality the world is not conceived
Either as existing or as nonexistent.

All dharmas, without any object to grasp as “me” or “mine”, should be known to be like a reflection.

The benefits of equanimity meditation

The measure of being well-trained by meditating in this way is that realization of profound peace arises, as well as realization of the nature of all dharmas as primordially unborn equality. The All- Creating King says:

Within the unthinking enlightenment of dharmata,
By resting in non-duality, wisdom will arise.

l. The fruition of equanimity

Of this meditation:

The fruition is that for mind, undisturbed by any bias,
There is a spontaneous presence of the natural state.
This is the actual nature of reality.

When feeling of bias and the relativity of self and other are non-existent, the absolute, non-dual dharmata, is realized.  When we have become familiar with this, we should perform the meditation of primordial kindness.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Good, evil, and neutral.