Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

"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...

"Notice that the equanimity is there to gauge how things are going. It’s not to be indifferent; it’s not to say, “I don’t care.” You look because you care, but there are times you realize that’s all you can do — just look, watch. Especially when things are uncertain in the mind. So, you watch for a while." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What Should I Do?"

"You’ve got to develop the brahmavihāras, all four of them, [including equanimity], both toward other people and toward yourself. You have goodwill [mettā] for them. You have compassion and empathetic joy, but you realize that there are times when their behavior is their behavior, and you can’t do much about it. Or even if you could do something about it, you’d lose your focus. It might be misdirected, especially if you still have that same problem within yourself." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "How to Be Self-Centered" (Meditations11)

"Equanimity is not the goal. We’re not here just to be equanimous about things, because there’s a sense of powerlessness in equanimity. You realize that there are things you simply cannot change as long as you’re in this world dealing with other people. They may decide they want to go to war. What are you going to do? You can protest, but what if they decide they’re not going to listen to the protests? What if they mow the protesters down? People do unskillful things all over the world all the time. This is the world we’re born into — and this is one of the relatively good ones. So equanimity cannot be the goal. But the fact that the reflection on equanimity is also the same as the reflection that leads to a motivation to want to practice the path, shows that when the Buddha teaches us equanimity, it’s not just a general indifference. When you have equanimity for all beings, it’s not just saying, “Well, who cares?” It’s more to focus you. There are a lot of things you cannot chan...

"Equanimity is not the goal. We’re not here just to be equanimous about things, because there’s a sense of powerlessness in equanimity. You realize that there are things you simply cannot change as long as you’re in this world dealing with other people. They may decide they want to go to war. What are you going to do? You can protest, but what if they decide they’re not going to listen to the protests? What if they mow the protesters down? People do unskillful things all over the world all the time. This is the world we’re born into — and this is one of the relatively good ones. So equanimity cannot be the goal. But the fact that the reflection on equanimity is also the same as the reflection that leads to a motivation to want to practice the path, shows that when the Buddha teaches us equanimity, it’s not just a general indifference. When you have equanimity for all beings, it’s not just saying, “Well, who cares?” It’s more to focus you. There are a lot of things you cannot chan...

"Equanimity is not the goal. We’re not here just to be equanimous about things, because there’s a sense of powerlessness in equanimity. You realize that there are things you simply cannot change as long as you’re in this world dealing with other people. They may decide they want to go to war. What are you going to do? You can protest, but what if they decide they’re not going to listen to the protests? What if they mow the protesters down? People do unskillful things all over the world all the time. This is the world we’re born into — and this is one of the relatively good ones. So equanimity cannot be the goal. But the fact that the reflection on equanimity is also the same as the reflection that leads to a motivation to want to practice the path, shows that when the Buddha teaches us equanimity, it’s not just a general indifference. When you have equanimity for all beings, it’s not just saying, “Well, who cares?” It’s more to focus you. There are a lot of things you cannot chan...

“There’s no telling how many people will be willing to search for true happiness, and you can’t make your happiness depend on their choices. If your happiness depends on the choices of other people, it’s going to be very unstable. You’ve got to make your happiness depend on your choices. Which means that when it comes to the choices of other people, you have to be equanimous. You have to keep your head so that you can make your choices well. Because that’s the area where you do have some responsibility and do have some power to make a change.” ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu “Keeping Your Head”

"When you look frankly at the world, you realize that if you really wish for people to be happy – if it’s a sincere wish and not just a little happy, happy, happy thought you put in the mind – you find that looking at the world gets painful. You wonder: Why can’t we just get along? You look around at people, and for some reason they keep on finding ways of not getting along. You’d think it should be easy for people to learn how to cooperate, to treat one another with respect, and yet they don’t. And as the Buddha pointed out, it’s going to get worse, this human world of ours, before it gets better. This is why equanimity is the most refined of all the brahmavihāras . It’s not a wish; it’s a statement of fact. All beings are the owners of their actions, heir to their actions. Whatever they do, for good or for evil, to that will they fall heir. Period. It’s a chastening thought, but one that you can hold on to and not suffer nearly so much. Ajaan Fuang commented that mettā needs up...