Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"Pass judgment in a way that doesn’t debilitate you. That’s the main problem with most people’s inner critic. It passes judgment and leaves no room for improvement, passes judgment and leaves no room for believing that you can actually do something right. Your inner critic has to be trained to understand that it is possible to put an end to suffering and you can do it. You have to be responsible, but you are capable and you really will benefit. That’s the other part of the bad inner critic, the part that says, “No matter how hard you try, it’s going to be a waste, so don’t even bother.” That inner critic has to be banished and replaced, not with an uncritical mind, but with a more skillfully critical mind — starting with teaching yourself to be non-reactive. You can see unskillful things in you and you don’t get worked up about them. You recognize them as unskillful and then you try to be very matter-of-fact in overcoming them. So that’s how non-reactivity functions. It’s a suppo...

"So try to face the ways of the world with equanimity and not let yourself get sucked into the narratives or systems of values that people use to tie you in, to keep you going along with their view of the world. After all, they want to make sure that everyone around them shares the same values so that they can feel comfortable, so they don’t have to face the huge abyss inside their hearts, the huge emptiness, the huge void, when those values are exposed for what they are. Their way of avoiding that is to rest assured that everybody else believes the way they do, thinks the way they do, and acts the way they do. But you’re not performing them any service by playing along. They may not like it if you don’t play along, but they have to learn to accept that. Maybe they can learn from it. If they don’t learn from it, well, you can’t force them to learn. But you can’t allow their attitudes to run your life. This is a huge area: your reaction to other people’s praise and cr...

"Realize that the kind of speech that human beings engage in is sometimes well meaning and sometimes not well meaning. Sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s false. Sometime it’s gentle; sometimes it’s harsh. Sometimes it’s outrageous. So when someone says something outrageous to you, that’s not the first time that’s happened in the world. You’re not the only person who’s being subjected to that. Everybody, even the Buddha, was subjected to criticism – totally unfair. Just chalk that up to the fact that you were born as a human being and this is the kind of stuff that human beings are subject to. This reflection is not meant to make you totally passive, but at least it gets you emotionally out of the issue. Then you can look at it from a more objective standard. What would be an effective thing to say right now?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Deconstruct Your Emotions"

"You learn how not to get fazed by criticism, especially from the people you respect. This doesn’t mean that you brush it off, simply that you don’t react emotionally. That allows you to look at the criticism to see exactly where it’s right: “How can I benefit from the criticism?” Then you can develop the attitude that Ajaan Lee talks about, where you can take anything that the world throws at you and see that it’s got its good side as well as its bad. No matter how good it may seem in terms of the world, it has its bad side. Wealth, fame, praise: Those things you’ve got to watch out for. At the same time, the things that the world says are bad have their good side as well. Material loss, loss of status, criticism: You can learn from loss, you can learn from criticism, but you learn best when you’re not reacting, when you can develop this sense of just knowing that whatever’s there is simply there. You’re not getting carried away by all the embroidery that you tend to add to these...

"So try to face the ways of the world with equanimity and not let yourself get sucked into the narratives or systems of values that people use to tie you in, to keep you going along with their view of the world. After all, they want to make sure that everyone around them shares the same values so that they can feel comfortable, so they don’t have to face the huge abyss inside their hearts, the huge emptiness, the huge void, when those values are exposed for what they are. Their way of avoiding that is to rest assured that everybody else believes the way they do, thinks the way they do, and acts the way they do. But you’re not performing them any service by playing along. They may not like it if you don’t play along, but they have to learn to accept that. Maybe they can learn from it. If they don’t learn from it, well, you can’t force them to learn. But you can’t allow their attitudes to run your life. This is a huge area: your reaction to other people’s praise and criticism, the r...