A Desire Worthy of Respect
October 26, 2023

You may have noticed we do a lot of bowing around here. We have an attitude of respect for the Buddha, for his teachings, and for the people who have carried his teachings on to the present moment—because these are valuable teachings. They teach us to value things that are important within ourselves. We all want happiness, but for the desire for happiness to be something worthy of respect means that you have to desire happiness that doesn’t harm anybody.

So many other ways that people find happiness in the world do involve harm, and then they deny the harm. Either they claim they didn’t harm anybody, or the people who did get harmed don’t matter. Or sometimes people say, “Well, why are you criticizing me?” People can get very defensive about the ways they look for happiness.

This is one of the reasons why right livelihood is an important part of the path. You want to make sure that your livelihood is harmless. You’re not stirring up greed, aversion, and delusion in other people. You’re not breaking the precepts. That way, you can be more honest with yourself. You look at the ways you’re looking for happiness, and you can see if there are some ways that actually do cause harm.

The Buddha is saying, though, that there’s a greater happiness to be found by not harming anyone at all. So we respect him for that. And we want to respect the desire we have in our own minds for that happiness. That’s the kind of desire the Buddha encouraged. He says you want to delight in a path that leads to a place of no conflict, a place of no harm. So whatever is involved in following that path, you want to have some respect for it.

There’s a Chan patriarch—I think it was the Third Patriarch—who said, “The Great Way is not difficult for those with no preferences.” Now he doesn’t mean that you don’t prefer anything at all. You do prefer the end of suffering. You do prefer the end of harm. But then you look at the path that leads to that happiness that has no suffering, has no harm, and in some cases it’s demanding. But you decide, “Okay, I’ll do whatever has to be done,” because you see that that original desire really is worthy of respect. So protect it.

The world out there will try to destroy it. They want you to buy their things, participate in their economy, so that they can make money off you. They don’t care about you. When you get old and can’t buy things anymore, they throw you away. But the Dhamma does care about you all the way to your dying day—and beyond. The economy of the noble ones has a place for everybody’s happiness, because the happiness that we find inside doesn’t take anything away from anyone else, doesn’t harm anybody. And it’s open to all.

So when we spread thoughts of goodwill to all beings—“May all beings be happy”—we think about true happiness. Then we realize there’s no conflict between your true happiness and everyone else’s. If your idea of happiness is, “May you be wealthy; may you have status,” there’s going to be a conflict there, because not everybody can be wealthy. Not everybody can have status outside. But if you think about true happiness—“May everybody find true happiness within”—there’s no conflict. So look for happiness in a way that causes no conflict, and your desire for happiness of the sort that’s worthy of respect.