Goodwill Permeates the Dhamma

There are a lot of religions in the world where the central figure was pure from the very beginning. These religions demand that we recognize his purity and our own impurity. So the emotions that are usually cultivated in religions like that are a sense of guilt, self-denial.

One of the distinctive features of the Buddha’s teachings is that the central figure started out imperfect. He knows what it’s like to be imperfect. When he attained perfection, his immediate response was to realize that we’re all suffering, but we don’t have to. It’s because of our actions. But our actions are done in ignorance.

So he didn’t look down on beings. And he didn’t order them around. He felt compassion. The proper response is for us to recognize that we have within ourselves the potential to become like him, based on the desire for true happiness.

We start out with confusion, as he says, or bewilderment. We suffer and we don’t know why. We look for someone who can teach us a way to get out of suffering. So there’s bewilderment and a search. And he provides us with his own example as a way to get out of suffering, because he, too, used to suffer. He knows what it’s like. But he also knows what it’s like how to get out of that. And the way he got out of that was to have lots of goodwill for himself. His desire for true happiness was very strong.

Think about it. He was a prince, he had lots of wealth, but he wasn’t satisfied. He realized that if he contented himself with ordinary wealth—things that are subject to aging, illness, and death—he, too, was subject to aging, illness, and death. Nothing of real value would be accomplished by searching for happiness in things like that.

So his standards were demanding: a happiness that wouldn’t age, wouldn’t grow ill, wouldn’t die. When he found it, he realized that he had found something of true value. And he wanted to share it.

Of course, he couldn’t take nibbāna out of his heart and have people stand in a line while he dished it out. But he could teach people how to follow the path, the path that he had found.

So the whole teaching, the fact that we have the Dhamma, comes out of his goodwill for all beings, his compassion beings who are suffering. So our proper response is one of goodwill, desiring happiness for ourselves. But we have to do this wisely.

As he says, wisdom starts with the question, “What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This shows the value of happiness as the foundational principle and it also shows what counts as wisdom. We realize that long-term is possible, that we have to look for long-term rather than short-term, and that it’s going to depend on our actions. So, by acting in skillful ways, we’re showing goodwill for ourselves. By following the Dhamma, we’re showing goodwill for ourselves.

As for compassion, he also taught that we all love ourselves. You can’t find anyone in the world that you love more than yourself, he said, but other people love themselves just as fiercely. If your happiness requires that they do things that are unskillful, or that you do unskillful things toward them, your happiness is not going to last. They’re going to try to destroy it. So for the sake of the goal of wisdom, you also have to have compassion. Don’t look for happiness in ways that afflict others or afflict yourself. And you learn how to do that by examining your actions.

The Buddha lays out some principles out for us in terms of generosity, virtue, and meditation, or virtue, concentration, and discernment. But for a lot of things, we’re going to have to depend on our own powers of observation: looking at our actions, looking at our intentions, being very honest with ourselves about our intentions.

Don’t do anything that you anticipate would cause harm to yourself or to others. If you don’t anticipate any harm from your intentions, you’re perfectly free to act on them. But then you look at what’s actually arising as a result of your actions while you’re doing them. If you are causing harm, you stop. If you’re not, you can continue.

Then, when the action is done, you look at the long-term results to check and see, “Did this lead to long-term welfare and happiness?” If it didn’t, if it afflicted somebody, you make up your mind not to repeat that mistake. And you develop a healthy sense of shame.

This is the shame that comes from wanting to look good in the eyes of the wise. It’s not the opposite of pride. It’s the opposite of shamelessness. You can talk it over with someone you trust on the path, and then you continue with the practice.

If you didn’t cause any harm, either to yourself or to others, take joy in that fact and continue training. In other words, you recognize your progress, you rejoice in your progress, but you don’t rest content. This, the Buddha said, is how you become pure.

As he noted, the secret to his awakening was that he didn’t rest content even with skillful qualities, to say nothing of unskillful qualities. If skillful qualities hadn’t reached the point where they put a total end to suffering, he wouldn’t rest content. He’d keep on going. But he would take joy in the fact that he was making progress. There’s a kind of pride that goes with the path, a healthy pride, where you see that you actually are improving.

So you can see that this is a very different kind of mental framework, a different kind of emotional framework for the practice, from that of other religions. It’s based on goodwill, along with the recognition that your desire for true happiness is something to be honored, as is the desire for others to find true happiness as well.

When you see that you’re making progress along the path, the pride you take in that—even though you’re not fully satisfied with yourself—the pride you take in that is an important energy for the path, food for the path.

So the basic response when you listen to the Buddha’s teachings should be goodwill: goodwill for yourself and your desire for true happiness; goodwill for others and their desire for true happiness. This is an attitude that should be cultivated.

Years back, there was a scholarly monk who wrote a book on what the Buddha taught. The basic framework of the book was the four noble truths. But when he got to the sublime attitudes, he didn’t know where to put them in the four noble truths, so he stuck them in as an appendix, which is a real misunderstanding.

To begin with, the four noble truths were taught because of the Buddha’s goodwill, because of his cultivation of the brahmavihāras. And then, in right resolve—one of the factors of the path—there’s non-ill will, i.e., goodwill; harmlessness, i.e., compassion. And then there’s right concentration. The practice of the brahmavihāras is one of the topics of right concentration.

So goodwill forms the context for the path, even as it plays roles in the path. Once you’ve learned the four noble truths, once you’ve learned right view, the response should be goodwill. Then you cultivate more goodwill as part of your resolve on how you’re going to act. That leads, ultimately, to the practice of right concentration, which is the heart of the path. So goodwill permeates everything.

A lot of us in the West have trouble having goodwill for ourselves. Sometimes we have trouble having goodwill for others, partly because we’ve been raised in a culture that rewards other emotions as being more spiritual: self-denial, self-abnegation, a sense of guilt. But for the Buddha, these are obstacles, they’re defilements, they’re hindrances on the path.

So learn how to cultivate an attitude of goodwill. Realize that it’s your spiritually mature emotion.

When I first learned about Buddhism, I was struck by the fact that it centered not on a divine being but on a human problem. Of course, it’s not just a human problem—it’s a problem for all beings—but it offered a humane solution, something that was within our power to do.

Of course, it requires that you be responsible. You can’t place the load on somebody else who’s going to take care of you. But it’s a responsibility that’s light. It’s a responsibility that’s joyous. You can find true happiness in a way that’s harmless. You can find true happiness in a way that cultivates good qualities of the heart and mind: wisdom, compassion, purity.

So have respect for your desire for true happiness, and respect for the practice of developing goodwill. Make it your basic framework for how you treat yourself, how you treat others, realizing that goodwill doesn’t mean just doing what people want or doing what you want. Goodwill for yourself means, “May I understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them.” Goodwill for others means, “May they understand the causes for true happiness and be willing and able to act on them.”

You look at the phrases that the Buddha recommends as you develop goodwill, and among them are, “May all beings look after themselves with ease.” “May no one despise anyone or wish anyone ill.” In other words, may they create the causes for true happiness.

So goodwill and wisdom are very closely associated. The goodwill provides the heart for the teaching. The Buddha wants you to use your head in realizing how to cultivate your desire for happiness so that it aims at true happiness and it really is something worthy of respect. The fact that this training involves both the heart and the head is why it’s really complete.