Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"The important thing is that you not get overwhelmed by the fact that things are not going well — because look at human life as a whole. Things don’t go well in human life. The body ages, gets sick, and dies. Nobody wants that, but it happens. We have to develop the kind of habit that’s not fazed by aging, not fazed by illness, not even fazed by death. You try to develop the warrior spirit that’s not overwhelmed by anything. When the battle’s not going well, the people who run away are sure to lose. It’s not that great soldiers never have setbacks. They have setbacks, but they learn how not to get overwhelmed by them. They take them as a challenge. Aging is a setback. Illness is a setback. Death is the ultimate one, but you don’t have to be overwhelmed by it. This is the good news offered by the Buddha: that you can train the mind so that none of these things will faze you. None of them will overwhelm you. So you keep working away and away and away at this habit of b...

"The important thing is that you not get overwhelmed by the fact that things are not going well — because look at human life as a whole. Things don’t go well in human life. The body ages, gets sick, and dies. Nobody wants that, but it happens. We have to develop the kind of habit that’s not fazed by aging, not fazed by illness, not even fazed by death. You try to develop the warrior spirit that’s not overwhelmed by anything. When the battle’s not going well, the people who run away are sure to lose. It’s not that great soldiers never have setbacks. They have setbacks, but they learn how not to get overwhelmed by them. They take them as a challenge. Aging is a setback. Illness is a setback. Death is the ultimate one, but you don’t have to be overwhelmed by it. This is the good news offered by the Buddha: that you can train the mind so that none of these things will faze you. None of them will overwhelm you. So you keep working away and away and away at this habit of being truthful,...

"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...