[I]n the Suttanipata (stanza 267) we find: “To remain unshaken by contact with the things of the secular world, to be free of anxiety, to be undefiled, and to be tranquil. This is the highest blessing.”

The following eight matters are the things of the world referred to in this stanza: gain and loss, fame and disgrace, praise and slander, and pleasure and pain. We are made happy when we gain and grow wealthy; we suffer and are disappointed when we lose property and become poor. We are elated at good reputation but distressed or filled with hatred for others when we are spoken ill of or are ignored by the world. Praise lifts us to the heights of joy; slander or criticism makes us resentful or hateful. We rejoice at health and the free life, but we become despondent when we are ill or fall on hard times. These ways of being moved by the eight things of the world are common to all mankind. The person who lacks true independence is always tossed here and there by these matters and ends his life in a weak, unstable condition. Hatred, fights, bloodshed, despondency, desperation, and suicide are some of the outcomes of being swayed by the eight things of the world. Buddhism teaches that we must not be moved or suffer when we come in contact with these things but must live in tranquility. This does not mean that we must attempt to avoid such contact. It does not mean that we must retire to remote mountainous regions to be free of the things of the world. The teaching of Buddhism is that, remaining part of society and facing the eight things of the world and all they imply directly, we must nonetheless be unmoved by them.

To do this we must maintain in our hearts something transcending these things. Doing this raises us to a position of high independence from which we must observe all things coolly, judge them accurately, and deal with them correctly. The transcendent something that enables us to live in this way is the correct Buddhist view of the world and of human life and the Buddhist understanding of the truth about all phenomena. Unbreakable faith in the Three Treasures, too, is essential. These views and this faith give human beings the ideal, rational critical attitude called right mindfulness and right knowledge. Because of this attitude, the believer is enabled to keep in mind always the basic Buddhist tenets that all things are impermanent, that nothing has an ego, and that nirvana is quiescence. This in turn makes it habitual to remain undisturbed and calm in all considerations and actions. (Page 132-133)