Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Equanimity

“Suppose that a man were to come along carrying a burning grass torch and saying, ‘With this burning grass torch I will heat up the river Ganges and make it boil.’ Now, what do you think? Would he, with that burning grass torch, heat up the river Ganges and make it boil?” “No, lord. Why is that? Because the river Ganges is deep & enormous. It’s not easy to heat it up and make it boil with a burning grass torch. The man would reap only a share of weariness & disappointment.” “In the same way, monks, there are these five aspects of speech by which others may address you: timely or untimely, true or false, affectionate or harsh, beneficial or unbeneficial, with a mind of goodwill [mettā] or with inner hate. Others may address you in a timely way or an untimely way. They may address you with what is true or what is false. They may address you in an affectionate way or a harsh way. They may address you in a beneficial way or an unbeneficial way. They may address you with a mind of...

"The Buddha often puts endurance together with another quality, which is goodwill [mettā] . No matter what other people do, you have to have goodwill for them. He talks about having goodwill as large as the Earth, as cool and as wide as the River Ganges. No one can make the Earth be without earth; no one can set the River Ganges on fire. Make it like space. People can try to write things in space, but it doesn’t stick. You can take a pen and wave it around in space, and the ink doesn’t hang there in the air because there’s nothing there for it to stick to. You want to have a mind like that. When people say things, it doesn’t reverberate, it doesn’t stick. Most of us have a mind like a big sheet of paper. If anybody has a pen anywhere nearby, it’s like a magnetic sheet of paper. It pulls the ink out of the pen and becomes an indelible stain. So when that happens, you have to remind yourself: Who are you going to blame? You’re the one who made your mind like magnetic paper. Try to m...

"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...

The Buddha: “Suppose that a man were to come along carrying a burning grass torch and saying, ‘With this burning grass torch I will heat up the river Ganges and make it boil.’ Now, what do you think? Would he, with that burning grass torch, heat up the river Ganges and make it boil?” The monks: “No, lord. Why is that? Because the river Ganges is deep & enormous. It’s not easy to heat it up and make it boil with a burning grass torch. The man would reap only a share of weariness & disappointment.” The Buddha: “In the same way, monks, there are these five aspects of speech by which others may address you: timely or untimely, true or false, affectionate or harsh, beneficial or unbeneficial, with a mind of goodwill or with inner hate. Others may address you in a timely way or an untimely way. They may address you with what is true or what is false. They may address you in an affectionate way or a harsh way. They may address you in a beneficial way or an unbeneficial way. They may a...