Upekṣā

Many passages in the Pali Canon and post-canonical commentaries identify upekkhā as an important aspect of spiritual development. It is one of the Four Sublime States of Brahmavihara, which purify mental states capable of counteracting the defilements of lust, aversion, and ignorance. As a Brahmavihara, it is also one of the forty traditionally identified subjects of Buddhist meditation (kammaṭṭhāna). In the Theravada list of ten pāramī (perfections), upekkha is the last-identified bodhisatta practice, and in the Seven Factors of Awakening (bojjhanga), it is the ultimate characteristic to develop.

To practice upekkha is to be unwavering or to stay neutral in the face of the eight vicissitudes of life—which are otherwise known as the eight directions of worldly winds or eight worldly conditions: loss and gain, good-repute and ill-repute, praise and censure, and sorrow and happiness (the atthaloka dhamma).^[1]

The "far enemies" of upekkhā are greed and resentment driven by desire and anger, which are mind-states that are in obvious opposition. The "near enemy", the quality which superficially resembles upekkhā but which subtly opposes it, is indifference or apathy.^[2]

In the development of meditative concentration, upekkhā arises as the quintessential factor of material absorption, present in the third and fourth jhāna, states:

Bhikkhu Bodhi, an American monk, wrote:

The real meaning of [upekkha] is equanimity, not indifference in the sense of unconcern for others. As a spiritual virtue, upekkha means equanimity in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. It is evenness of mind, unshakeable freedom of mind, a state of inner equipoise that cannot be upset by gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Upekkha is freedom from all points of self-reference; it is indifference only to the demands of the ego-self with its craving for pleasure and position, not to the well-being of one's fellow human beings. True equanimity is the pinnacle of the four social attitudes that the Buddhist texts call the "divine abodes": boundless loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. The last does not override and negate the preceding three, but perfects and consummates them.^[6]