An Equanimity You Can Feed On (extract)

"The same with equanimity in the brahmaviharas: You start with goodwill [mettā] and compassion and empathetic joy. You don’t go straight to equanimity, because feelings of goodwill are nourishing. Feelings of compassion are nourishing. Feelings of empathetic joy: When you realize that you don’t need to feed on resentment anymore, you can actually feed off the happiness of other people. All of these attitudes are uplifting for the mind.

But they have to be backed up by equanimity, and the equanimity needs them, too. Otherwise it gets dry. The reason they need to be backed up by equanimity is because often when you see people who are suffering, or other times when you are suffering and you can’t do anything about it, you can’t let yourself get worked up. Or there are cases where you see that people are happy, but you realize it’s not going to last. You realize there are cases where you have pleasures and happiness that are not going to last, and you have to meet that fact with equanimity.

But again, this comes not from just telling yourself to be non-reactive or not to care. You feed the mind well to the point where it can actually feed off the equanimity, and then you can live in the world and not have to suffer so much from it. After all, we live in a world where we’re not the only ones subject to aging, illness and death. The people all around us are, too. And many of them are people we love, people who have been good to us.

When you come up against these cases, you can’t just say, well, be equanimous and leave it at that. That’s going back to the old non-reactive equanimity, which is not all that nourishing. It’s not all that stable. You need to be able to feed the mind from within, so that it’s food source is independent. That way, when you’re with people who are suffering, especially people who are close to you, people and your family very close friends, you can actually be of more help if you have this kind of equanimity behind you.

It’s in this way that equanimity is a social virtue. It’s the equanimity that allows you not to have to feed off your relationships with other people."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "An Equanimity You Can Feed On"

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