Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"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 equ...

Question: For Westerners, equanimity is often given a bad rap. It’s seen as kind of a sense of futility, a passive attitude, indifference, or even a weakness. Is this true? Can you give us some examples that would show that there is actually a noble, better understanding of this noble faculty? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Equanimity is basically accepting things that you realize you cannot change. And the reason why we have to accept them is because if we don’t, we waste a lot of energy trying to change things that we can’t. If you do develop equanimity toward those things, though, then you have the energy to change the things that you can. For example, suppose that someone in your family has a serious illness. You have to accept that fact with equanimity, and then from there you try to see what you can do to help. The acceptance is what allows you to think clearly. If you’re upset or disturbed by the illness, sometimes you actually make the condition worse. So, we’re not talking about a gene...

"Equanimity is sometimes taught with a defeatist attitude. A defeatist attitude says, basically, that there’s no lasting happiness to be found in the world, so you might as well give up trying to find it. Just learn to accept things as they are and don’t hope for them to be better than what they are. When you give up on your search for happiness, you can be equanimous and content with what you’ve got. That, as I said, is a defeatist attitude. It’s equanimity tinged with regret, disappointment, and a sense of powerlessness. It’s heavy and narrow, a contentment found by lowering your standards for satisfaction. We bow down to the Buddha, though, because he actually has us raise our standards for satisfaction, to accept nothing less than the ultimate happiness. There’s nothing defeatist in his attitude at all. In fact, he called the noble eightfold path the path to victory: You can find a happiness that’s not subject to aging, illness, and death, that’s totally free of sorrow. You wi...

"It’s easy to be equanimous about some things but not about others. If a stranger in foreign land gets sick, you may feel a little compassion, but it’s easy for the mind to switch to equanimity: This is the way of the world. It happens every day. But if someone you deeply love gets sick, it’s hard to stay equanimous. Yet at times like that, if you really want to be of help to that person, you have to develop some equanimity, to get the mind to calm down so that you can think clearly about what’s the most helpful thing to do." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sublime Determinations: a Retreat on the Brahmavihāras"

"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...

"Aging comes, illness comes, death comes. We see this all around us, and we have to remind ourselves: This is normal. Our problem is that we see it as normal for other people but not normal for ourselves. We constantly think that we’re an exception. It’s like that cartoon in the New Yorker: Three death-figures [grim reapers]. One of them is lying on the ground on its back, and one of the other ones is saying, “You never think it’s going to happen to you.” But once there’s birth there’s going to be aging, there’s going to be illness, there’s going to be death. These things are normal for everybody. If we want to learn how not to suffer from them, we have to keep our minds normal in their presence." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Normalcy"

"We have that chant, “We’re subject to aging, illness and death and subject to separation.” In the Thai translation of that Pali passage, it’s, “Aging is normal. Illness is normal. Death is normal.” We don’t like to think about these things as normal, but actually if you can learn how to think about them as normal, you can do away with a lot of suffering. But it also means that when things happen to the body, you have to say, “Oh, it’s just the normal way of the body.” You do what you can, if it’s a disease, to treat it, but you find that there are some things that are there without asking permission — and they’re there regardless of what the doctors do or whatever medical treatment you can think up for yourself — that’s when you have to learn how to live with these things but without suffering from them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Blameless Happiness"

"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,...