Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"When you’re dealing with other people, there are going to be a lot of things you don’t like. You can’t let your likes and dislikes get in the way of your doing what’s skillful. If you treat the people you like well but treat the people you dislike in a shabby way, that becomes your karma. It’s not good for you. So you have to remember, you’re not treating people well because they deserve it. You’re treating people well because it’s part of your training. It’s part of your safety, your protection. The Buddha talks again and again about goodwill [mettā] as a form of protection. And goodwill always has to be accompanied by equanimity, just as equanimity has to be accompanied by goodwill. If we have just equanimity without the goodwill, we become indifferent, callous. We become apathetic. There’s that great story of the storm that went through Ajaan Chah’s monastery once. The next day, Ajaan Chah went around the monastery checking up on the damage, and he found one monk sitting in a...

"Most of us spend our lives feeding off our moods, looking for happy moods because those are the fun ones to feed on. But once you’ve put the mind in a position of feeding off its moods, you find that it’s got a lot of other things to feed on as well, such as depression or sorrow. Once you create that kind of mouth and stomach for the mind, hoping to feed off the good moods, it’s open to take in the sad moods as well. This happens in your daily life and in your meditation, too. The reason we keep doing this is because we feel that moods at least create the spice of life. If the mind didn’t have moods, we’d feel like we were robots. The idea of a mind without moods sounds like oatmeal nothing added to it, i.e. pretty miserable, pretty dull. But stop and think about the dangers of our moods. They can induce us to do all kinds of unskillful things. If we get really depressed, we get apathetic. Nothing seems to matter — you lose any sense of concern for the results of you...

"Most of us spend our lives feeding off our moods, looking for happy moods because those are the fun ones to feed on. But once you’ve put the mind in a position of feeding off its moods, you find that it’s got a lot of other things to feed on as well, such as depression or sorrow. Once you create that kind of mouth and stomach for the mind, hoping to feed off the good moods, it’s open to take in the sad moods as well. This happens in your daily life and in your meditation, too. The reason we keep doing this is because we feel that moods at least create the spice of life. If the mind didn’t have moods, we’d feel like we were robots. The idea of a mind without moods sounds like oatmeal nothing added to it, i.e. pretty miserable, pretty dull. But stop and think about the dangers of our moods. They can induce us to do all kinds of unskillful things. If we get really depressed, we get apathetic. Nothing seems to matter — you lose any sense of concern for the results of your actions. Wh...