In many Thai contexts, reminders to keep a “cool heart” are prevalent. Even in the midst of long-term and end-of-life care, ideal support is not so much about rich emotional sharing as the abandoning of attachment and the attainment of equanimity in the face of tumult. In this talk, I interrogate the emotional and affective valence of ordinary caregiving situations in Northern Thailand. To do so, I look to the Tipitaka – the compendium of sermons, commentaries, and technical manuals of the Pali canon – as a guide and theoretical frame. With ethnographic material otherwise vexing to a host of analytic perspectives, the theory of mind the Theravada philosophical lineage presents proves crucial for understanding contemporary subjectivity at Thai bedsides and beyond.