Upekkha - Equanimity
Balanced, impartial love extending equally to all beings.
Upekkha is a spacious, balanced state that treats all beings with equal concern. It is not indifference but rather love freed from attachment and aversion, extending equally to friends, strangers, and enemies.
Just as a mother would protect her only child with her life, even so let one cultivate a boundless love towards all beings.
Equanimity prevents the other immeasurables from becoming biased or attached.
Metta Sutta
Written about in
- What Tibetan Buddhism says about compassion
Even-handedness. Not indifference, but care that does not rise for friends and drop for strangers.
- What Tibetan Buddhism says about envy and comparison
Equanimity here is explicitly not indifference; it is love freed from attachment and aversion, extended equally to friend, stranger and enemy. It removes the machinery envy runs on, which is a private ranking of people by how much their good fortune concerns you.