द्वन्द्व

Dvandva (द्वन्द्व) means a pair, especially a pair of opposites. The world of experience is made of such pairs: pleasure and pain, cold and heat, gain and loss, victory and defeat, honour and dishonour.

The word itself appears in the second chapter, in verse 2.45, as nirdvandva, one who has risen above the pairs. And the verses of this topic name the pairs one by one: cold and heat, pleasure and pain (2.14), gain and loss, victory and defeat (2.38), honour and dishonour (6.7).

The Gita does not ask that one end of a pair be wiped out. We cannot keep pleasure and remove pain; they arrive together. It asks that we neither cling to one end nor flee the other, since clinging and fleeing both let the pair rule the mind.

This is why equanimity and the pairs go together: the pairs are the ground on which the mind swings, and equanimity is staying on the axis of the swing.

For more, see the topic on equanimity.