“Sometimes people in abusive situations think they’re responsible for the other person’s happiness or that they’re going to fix them and make them feel better. The practice of equanimity teaches that it’s not all up to you to make someone else happy.”

author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practice

Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practice in the West. She co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, in 1974 with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Her work centers on vipassanā, or insight, and mettā, or loving-kindness, and she has led meditation retreats around the world for several decades. She is known for writing and teaching in that tradition, with an emphasis on practice and attention to the mind.