Goodwill, Grounded with Transportation
November 03, 2016

When the Buddha describes developing goodwill, he says you give it a grounding and you give it a means of transport.

The grounding is what you do as you work with the breath to create a sense of well-being inside. If you don’t feel any well-being, it’s hard to wish for other beings or people to have well-being too. So work with your breath, get the breath comfortable, as an act of kindness to yourself and to other people. When you’re less irritated inside, you’re much less likely to lash out at other people and to forget the fact you have to have goodwill for them, too.

That’s the grounding.

As for the means of transport, you want to be able to send goodwill out in all directions. Wherever you go, you have goodwill for all the people you encounter. Realizing that your wish for everybody’s happiness… It may not happen that they’re going to be happy. You look at the world right now and it’s a time for a lot of equanimity, there are a lot of things we can’t change. But even with equanimity, you don’t abandon your goodwill. You see the areas where you can be of help to other people and you’re happy to be of help.

When you deal with difficult people, you realize that they’re suffering to some extent and you hope that they find some way past that suffering. So you don’t focus on the nasty things they do and say to you. You focus instead on the fact that we’re all suffering together, so there’s no need to add on top of the suffering already out there. That way you can go through the world and not place a burden on the world. You can be light. In fact, you can help other people with their burdens if you have the strength.

So make sure that your goodwill is grounded and make sure that it has a means of transport. That’s what makes it solid and that’s what makes it all-around.