What is Equanimity?

Dear Friends and Colleagues, 

Thank you for the heartfelt feedback on my essay about equanimity in a time of outrage. It is profoundly gratifying to know the words resonated, offering some solace and inspiration in these turbulent times.

As a follow-up, I’d like to share a podcast episode with Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates from September 28. Woven throughout the conversation, and between the lines, I heard Ta-Nehisi echo what john powell said to me at that backyard gathering: “I just stick with my values.” He also pressed Ezra to clarify his own role as political commentator, a question that seemed to point to something deeper: what are your values, what really matters, and can you get clear on that?

This is where equanimity comes in.  It’s an old-fashioned word for an old-fashioned set of standards: virtues.  Although it’s prized across all major religions, people often ask me what it means — and it’s not an easy word to pin down. In Buddhist philosophy, it’s the fourth of the brahmavihārās: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — what Frank Ostaseski calls “the four flavors of love.” When love meets suffering, it becomes compassion. When it meets goodness, it becomes kindness. When it meets the good fortune of others, it becomes joy. And when it meets life’s ungovernability, it becomes equanimity.