Any time in our life or in other people's lives, where we can see that a balance is needed. The examples on the paper were Mother Teresa when she was very balanced, compared with the Oklahoma bombers who were not very balanced. How often are we ourselves unbalanced? How often do we care, do we offer our help? Or when we get rejected and we get angry? How many people sit in a chair, in English we say being "armchair reactionaries", and complain about the government? And they just sit, sit, sit in that chair complaining about the government. There is no energy behind this attitude, maybe they have a type of compassion, but there is only aversion behind it and they don't actually do anything about the issue that is concerning them. So this is another example where nothing is getting done. We need to have equanimity but we also have to have a lot of strength in order to do something positive. Compassion is a wish, but if it only stays a wish, then nothing ever really gets done.
When we feel strong inside, it is often because our reactions are based in Equanimity. So when you look at your life, see for yourself, how often do you kind of get weighed down and this stops you from being able to do something? This is going into the grief side of compassion. On the other side if you get angry, this might give you lots of energy but what is the benefit if all you do is get angry and you don't go anywhere with that energy.
Recently there were protest marches in America in Washington, DC against the war. Ok, people were going outward, they were actually doing something to try to make their voices heard. To express that they don't like what is going on, they have Compassion for what is going on. And if they peacefully march, then we can say that there is a balance there. But the minute they go into anger, they are not marching peacefully. If they start attacking the place, and so on, then they are going into aversion and then the balance isn't there. So when you think of Compassion and Equanimity and the various reflections on this topic, there are endless stories outside our own personal experience, and there are more stories from within our own experiences. Times where you faced a certain situation, you cared a bit about it, but which way did you go? Hopefully you were balanced, but many times you were probably not balanced.
Take a newspaper, look through the different articles, you don't have to read all the stories, but check the headlines. You will often see something that can stimulate an understanding of Compassion and Equanimity. As I often say we often don't have to read the story itself, but just imagine what is happening in the story. Imagine how this situation could be balanced, imagine how it might go off balance. This is something you can do sitting on a pillow, as well. Take stories in your head, even if they were balanced, imagine how they could have been unbalanced, and vice versa. And your mind may get going a bit.