August 05, 2026

Fix It Or Free It

If there's a remedy when trouble strikes, what reason is there for dejection? And if there is no help for it, what use is there in being glum?

Shantideva was an eighth-century Buddhist monk-scholar at India's Nalanda monastery, said to have startled his fellow monks by reciting the Bodhicharyavatara from memory rather than giving the ordinary lecture they expected. In the chapter on patience, he confronts the mind's habit of spiraling into misery over hardship and offers a simple test for any trouble that arises. If a problem can be solved, he asks, why waste energy on gloom instead of acting? And if it truly cannot be solved, what does the gloom add except more suffering? Eastern traditions treat equanimity not as indifference but as this clear appraisal — meeting each situation with either skillful action or full acceptance, so the mind stays steady the way a mountain holds its ground through changing weather.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Equanimity →