Active Goodwill

When you spread thoughts of goodwill, it’s more than just, “May you be happy; may I be happy; may all beings be happy.”

If you stop to think for a minute about what it means for someone to be happy and how it happens, you realize that it comes from the person’s actions. If you want to be happy, you have to look into your actions to make sure they’re skillful. And you hope that other people will be willing to look at their actions in the same way.

So you’re respecting them as agents. They’re not just objects of your goodwill; they’re also agents in and of their own right.

Then you stop to think about what you might do to help them.

All too often, when we meet someone else, we want to be liked. We may be too eager to say things that we think will please them. But it’s actually more for their good if you can think of things that would actually be good for them. That’s when your goodwill becomes active.

A while back I was reading of someone who had been to Asia, come back to teach Dhamma in the West, and was teaching lovingkindness. The students complained that it was sappy. It sounded too sweet and pollyannaish. So he switched and said, “Metta means ‘I accept you.’”

But metta means more than acceptance. It’s an active wish for people’s happiness. After all, that’s what inspired the Buddha to teach. It wasn’t just that he accepted people. If he just accepted people, he would have stayed home, let them do what they want. But he bothered them, bothered them by telling them there’s something better—something that requires work, requires training, requires heedfulness. But it is really a good reward for all the efforts you put into it.

So think about that as you engage with other people. How would the engagement be both for your good and for the genuine good of the other person?—respecting you as an agent, respecting the other person as an agent, and you both have the potential to improve.

When you think in those terms, goodwill is more active. And it falls in line with the sense you get from the ajaans from Thailand when they talk about goodwill. For them, it’s a strength. It’s a strength that protects you. You wish well to others. If you’re living in the forest, you wish well to all the elephants and snakes and whatever else there may be in between. In that way, you can get along a lot better, because you’re actively thinking about what would be for that animal’s well-being, what would be for that person’s well-being. Sometimes it might be, “Stay away, but go your way, find happiness. I’ll go my way and find a happiness that’s harmless.” In that way, your goodwill becomes a much more positive force in the world.