Equanimity

Definition

Equanimity is the evenness of mind that fortune cannot disturb. The person of equanimity is not unmoved — they feel joy and sorrow, love and loss — but they are not carried away: the joy does not become grasping, the sorrow does not become despair, because the ground of their peace is not in the changing fortunes of life but in the steady state of their own soul. The word's Latin roots — aequus, even, and animus, mind — capture the image: the mind that stays level while the sea around it rises and falls. Every tradition of wisdom has made equanimity a central value, and its philosophical interest lies in what it reveals about the relation between the inner life and the external world: the claim, common to the traditions, that the evenness of the soul is in our power, whatever fortune brings.

Historical Views

The Stoics made equanimity the goal of their whole practice. Marcus Aurelius returns to it constantly in the Meditations: the mind should be "like a rock that the waves break against," the soul should be "as it would be if it were stripped of the body and stood alone," and the person who has achieved this is free: "It is not events that disturb us, but our judgments about them." The Stoic apatheia — the freedom from the passions that Chrysippus analyzed and Epictetus taught — is the philosophical form of equanimity: the state of the soul that has corrected its judgments and therefore cannot be disturbed by the impressions of fortune. Seneca describes the same ideal in his account of the tranquility of mind: the soul that is "always at rest and settled, serene and unruffled."

The Buddhist tradition has developed the concept of upekkha, the fourth of the four divine abodes (brahmaviharas), the qualities that a mature mind cultivates toward all beings: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Buddhist equanimity is the evenness of mind that sees the arising and passing of all things without being attached to them — the mind that has understood impermanence and therefore neither clings to what arises nor grieves what passes. The Epicureans had their own version: ataraxia, the freedom from disturbance, which they made the goal of the philosophical life. Across the traditions, the ideal is the same: the soul that is its own ground, and therefore cannot be shaken by the ground moving beneath it.

Different Cultural Perspectives

The traditions differ in how they ground equanimity. The Stoics ground it in judgment: the passions are errors of reason, and equanimity is the state of the mind that has corrected its judgments about what is good and evil. The Buddhists ground it in insight: the understanding of impermanence and non-attachment, which releases the mind from grasping and aversion. The Epicureans ground it in the management of desire: the limitation of desire to what is natural and necessary, which removes the sources of disturbance. The Confucian tradition grounds it in the cultivation of the self: the person of virtue, whose character is steady, is not shaken by success or failure — "the gentleman is not anxious or fearful," as the Analects put it. And the Stoic practice of negative visualization — imagining loss in advance — is the deliberate training of equanimity: the mind that has rehearsed misfortune is not surprised by it.

Practical Lessons

Equanimity yields practical lessons of the first importance. First, equanimity is not the absence of feeling but the mastery of it: the person of equanimity feels deeply and is not carried away. Second, equanimity is grounded in judgment, not in luck: it depends on how we interpret events, not on what happens to us. Third, equanimity is trained, not given: the practices of the traditions — the Stoic disciplines, the Buddhist meditation, the examination of conscience — are the training by which the evenness of mind is acquired. Fourth, equanimity is compatible with the fullest engagement: the person of equanimity is not indifferent — they love, serve, and act with complete commitment, but their peace does not depend on the outcome. Fifth, equanimity is the foundation of the other virtues: the even mind is the mind that can see clearly, judge truly, and act well.

Related Thinkers

The philosophy of equanimity is represented by Marcus Aurelius, whose Meditations are the greatest record of the practice, by Seneca, whose essays on tranquility describe the ideal, and by Epictetus, whose teaching of the disciplines is the method. The Buddhist tradition's account of upekkha, transmitted through the Buddha's teaching, is the Eastern counterpart of the Stoic ideal, and the concept connects to the wider wisdom themes of inner peace, tranquility, and acceptance.

Sources

• Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Trans. Gregory Hays. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Stoicism" (plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism)
• The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.