The teachings on equanimity are there to teach you about action — to take a mature attitude toward your actions, seeing where you’ve made a mistake, where things are not going well, and what you can do to change.
"The teachings on equanimity are there to teach you about action — to take a mature attitude toward your actions, seeing where you’ve made a mistake, where things are not going well, and what you can do to change. One of the definitions of maturity is being able to admit a mistake. If you don’t admit your mistakes, you’re never going to learn from them because you can’t even see them. That closes off all possibility of improvement. So that’s something we have to be equanimous about as well: the fact that we’ve made mistakes. We’ve done unskillful actions, but we have the opportunity right now to do something more skillful. We can learn.
So equanimity is not just acceptance and it’s not just passivity. It’s directly related to appropriate attention. If there’s something wrong, look at your intentions. If there’s something wrong, look at what you’re doing. Your intentions may be good, but the means may be wrong. Or your intention may be corrupted and, in that case, no matter how good the means or strategies are, it’s not going to work. So look at these aspects of your actions: the intentions, the perceptions that underlie them, the effort, the object, and the results. Remember that equanimity is not here just as a final resting spot. It’s actually one of the prerequisites for learning how to meditate."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Equanimity & Action"
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