Develop the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes he can't solve all the cases in the world

"When, while you’re trying to develop compassion and empathetic joy, you run across cases where you can’t help the other person, either to become happy or to maintain happiness, that’s when you have to develop equanimity. This is the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes that he can’t solve all the cases in the world. But if he lets his heart get broken over all the cases he can’t solve, he won’t have the energy to help the cases he might have been able to solve. So for the people who come to him and have the karma that allows him to help — and he himself has the karma that allows him to help them — he should think of that as a precious opportunity. It’s not always there. Make the most of it and don’t let yourself get distracted by things you can’t control or where you can’t be of help.

Because, as I said, karma is complex. The combination of the patient’s karma to be in a position where he or she can be cured, and the doctor’s karmic connection with that patient: It doesn’t always happen that these things are in alignment. So when they are, focus your energies there and don’t get frustrated by the cases where your karma is not in alignment at that time. It may happen at some time later. Or, when things line up for that particular patient, the karmic alignment may have to involve another doctor.

This is the sign of wisdom among doctors: when a doctor has a patient and yet he knows that he’s not the doctor for that patient. Maybe somebody else is. That requires a certain amount of humility. It’s all the better part of wisdom — because that’s what equanimity is in the brahmaviharas: the voice of wisdom. It keeps reminding you that you have to understand your karma, you have to understand the karma of others, realizing in both cases that it’s quite complex. You can’t let simplistic emotions get in the way of making the most of your karmic opportunities."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma & the Sublime Attitudes"