Equanimity and Patience sometimes look very similar. However, to be very clear on this, Patience can just be enduring something, but not really being equanimous at all. It can just be, "Yes, I can endure! But inside I hate every minute of it, but I can endure!" So Patience can have that quality.
Whereas Equanimity has a balance. Equanimity has a balance which actually allows you to be patient. Because to a certain degree it doesn't care. It doesn't care going right, it doesn't care going left. It's okay, in the sense that things are basically equal and such things. It's not going to get too caught up in wanting, wanting, wanting, because it knows that is pain. It's not going to get too caught up in hating, hating, hating because it knows that's pain, too.
Equanimity by and large needs Wisdom to make it work great. And to a certain extent, all of the Paramis work together. Please don't ever get the thought, that you can just take one Parami and work it by itself. Because they all overlap a little bit this way or that way.
Now, I'll sidetrack a little. Because there's another type of Paramis Reflection that I don't think is in the retreat. It's a way of sitting down and reflecting on the Paramis in pairs. Now, I think there are 45 different pairs, so it would take you more than one period. Take two, like Patience and Equanimity, and look at how they work together, you look at how they're different to each other, you look as to whether one can come before the other or whether they have to arise together and this and that. So you can actually reflect on Paramis in pairs. That's another way to do Paramis Reflection.
Here in particular with Equanimity, you have to think of balance, think of the seesaw that's perfectly balanced, that's not moving, and perfectly level. Try to make your mind level in that way, so that you're not getting caught up too much in liking, disliking and so on. When you think of the Noble Eightfold Path, and Theravadin Buddhism in particular, is often referred to as The Middle Way, the Middle Way in between extremes.
Equanimity is a key to that, Wisdom is the another key and so on. Modern psychology by and large has this thought of two things we can do, suppress or indulge. But Theravadin Buddhism has always been pointing out, no, no, no, a Middle Way! This is again the balance, not indulging and not suppressing. With Equanimity and Wisdom, we let go through that, we let go through understanding Dukkha. Equanimity, as I said, must rely on Wisdom to be balanced. Because if the Equanimity doesn't really know anything, it can't be balanced. It's going to get upset. It's going to get angry. It's going to get mad. And that, of course, is the opposite of Equanimity.