Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"The Buddha says that there are basically two kinds of speech, pleasant speech and unpleasant speech. He divides them into different ways of being pleasant and unpleasant. There’s well-meaning and ill-meaning speech, harsh and gentle, timely and untimely, true and false. These categories of speech can be found all over the world. So when you’re the person to whom untimely, unkind, untrue, ill-meaning speech is directed, there’s nothing really strange about that. This is part of the human condition." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Stop Shooting Yourself"

"All too often we feel that when other people are misbehaving, it gives us license to misbehave in return. Or we’re afraid that if we let them “walk all over us,” they’ll get used to treating us like a doormat. So we feel we have to show that we’re not doormats. There’s a passage in the Canon where one of the asuras basically says, “If people see that you’re not fighting back when they mistreat you, then they’ll think that you’re weak and they’ll mistreat you even more.” And Sakka, the king of the devas replies, “No. How they see you is not the issue. The issue is your own behavior, because that becomes your karma. If other people misbehave and you misbehave in response, then that misbehavior becomes yours. If they think you’re weak, then they know nothing of the Dhamma” — because you have to remember that qualities like goodwill [mettā], patience, equanimity, and kindness are forms of strength. There’s that story where Lady Vedehika is famous for being kind, generous, and mild...

"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"

"The Buddha says that there are basically two kinds of speech, pleasant speech and unpleasant speech. He divides them into different ways of being pleasant and unpleasant. There’s well-meaning and ill-meaning speech, harsh and gentle, timely and untimely, true and false. These categories of speech can be found all over the world. So when you’re the person to whom untimely, unkind, untrue, ill-meaning speech is directed, there’s nothing really strange about that. This is part of the human condition." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Stop Shooting Yourself"