It’s not because people are good that you spread goodwill to them. It’s because you don’t want to harm them. And this desire should apply to yourself as well.

"If you have trouble feeling goodwill [mettā] for yourself, ask yourself why. You might respond, “Well, I’m not a good person,” or whatever, but that doesn’t matter. It’s not because people are good that you spread goodwill to them. It’s because you don’t want to harm them. And this desire should apply to yourself as well."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Unsentimental Goodwill"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ajahn Chah story: The Equanimity of a Water Buffalo

"There’s a story they tell about a monk who once stayed with Ajaan Chah during the rains retreat. Half of the roof of his hut blew off in a rain storm, and as Ajaan Chah was later walking around the monastery to check on the storm damage, he noticed that half of the roof had blown off and that the monk was simply sleeping in that half of the hut that was still roofed. Ajaan Chah asked him, “Why are you doing this? Why aren’t you fixing your hut?” The monk said, ”I’m trying to practice equanimity.” Ajaan Chah’s response was: “That’s not the equanimity that the Buddha taught, that’s the equanimity of a water buffalo,” or we in English would say, it’s the equanimity of a cow. The point here is that the Buddha didn’t teach us just to be passive about things, or just to accept things. The basic concept of the path is the difference between skillful and unskillful, and there are times when simple equanimity is not skillful." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Equanimity of a Cow...
Read more

If you were to wait for the world to be happy and peaceful, with everybody behaving nicely, and only then you would meditate, or then you would be able to get your mind to settle down, you would die first.

"So for the sake of your own freedom, you’ve got to let go of any ill will based on the horrible things that people have done. You remind yourself that it’s for your own true well-being that you’re developing these thoughts [of mettā]. You want to be able to trust yourself so that you don’t do or say or think unskillful things around people who are difficult. After all, you live in a world where almost everybody is difficult one way or another. If you were to wait for the world to be happy and peaceful, with everybody behaving nicely, and only then you would meditate, or then you would be able to get your mind to settle down, you would die first." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Heart Set on Goodwill"
Read more

We’ve all made mistakes in the past, but we’ve all done some good things, too. So focus on the good that you’ve done. Dedicate that to your future, dedicate that to the people you’ve harmed in the past.

"We’ve all made mistakes in the past, but we’ve all done some good things, too. Focus on the good things. Those are what give you strength to keep on doing more good things. If you focus on the bad things you’ve done, you just start spiraling down and it’s hard to pull yourself up. So focus on the good that you’ve done. Dedicate that to your future, dedicate that to the people you’ve harmed in the past, so that you can live in this world without a sense that you’ve got a big debt. You’re working on paying off your debts, so work at it every day, every day." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Focus on the Good"
Read more