Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"The thought of someone you’ve lost or some thing that you’ve lost? Reflect on impermanence and inconstancy: These things are all made to be lost. Think of Ajaan Chah’s analogy: to think of the cup as already broken. This doesn’t mean that you treat it casually. You actually take very good care of it. But part of the mind has to be prepared that someday it’s going to break. The Buddha compares people to pots. As he says, all pots get broken eventually. Whether it takes a long or a short time, they’re all heading to be broken. In the same way, people are all headed to being broken. The world is broken. It’s never going to be perfect. If you can accept that, then you can live with it, and do what you can to make it a little bit better. But particularly, do what you can to make yourself better, make yourself more reliable, so that the changes of the world don’t lead to changes inside, at least not to the deterioration of anything good inside. When you can maintain this kind of soli...

"The world would be a nice place if we could provide for each other’s happiness — and we can a little bit — but for the really deep down parts, we each have to be responsible for ourselves. If you constantly worry about this person and that person, no matter how close you are to them, there’s going to be a part of you that gets neglected that you really are responsible for." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Your True Responsibility"