Determined on Goodwill

We start the day with thoughts of goodwill. This is the framework for our practice. We’re practicing because we have goodwill for ourselves. And if we have goodwill for ourselves, we also have to have goodwill for others, because if we act on ill will toward anybody, it’s going to come back at us. It’s certainly not going to be for our true welfare and happiness.

So your true well-being encompasses the well-being of others. Fortunately, true happiness is something that everybody can have. Your true happiness doesn’t conflict with anyone else’s. Theirs doesn’t have to conflict with yours.

This is a point that we have to keep on remembering. As the Buddha said, goodwill is a form of mindfulness. It’s something you have to keep in mind. Now, individual cases of goodwill for people you like come naturally. But goodwill for everybody—it’s called a brahma-vihāra for a good reason. It’s where the Brahmās live, in that attitude.

It’s not a manussa-vihāra. Manussa is the word for human being. Human beings are not naturally inclined to spread goodwill to all beings. They tend to be more partial. So as you practice the brahma-vihāras, you’re trying to lift your mind, expand your mind, take it to a higher level. That’s something you have to keep in mind, and you have to be determined on it.

Remember what the Buddha had to say about determination: One, be discerning. In other words, understand what a wish for happiness is—not saying to all the beings in the world, “May you be happy doing whatever you’re doing,” because there are a lot of people doing some very unskillful things, very harmful things. You want all beings to be skillful in their actions. That’s the only way they’re going to have the causes for happiness. This is why one of the Buddha’s expressions for goodwill is, “May no one despise anyone or cause anyone any harm.”

So you’re thinking of other beings not only as the recipients of your goodwill, but also as producers of happiness. May they produce true happiness, too. Keep that thought in mind.

And also stop to think: Is there anyone for whom you can’t have that attitude? There are a lot of people, as I said, who are doing very unskillful things. Ideally, you’re wishing that they would stop doing those unskillful things for their own good. That’s a wish you can have for anybody.

Once you’re determined on a discerning way of thinking about goodwill, then the next step is to be true. In other words, you don’t just think thoughts of goodwill, but you also act on thoughts of goodwill. You speak based on thoughts of goodwill. Bring goodwill into your actions.

The third step is relinquishment. Anything that would get in the way of goodwill, you learn how to let go. Any thoughts of revenge, any thoughts that justice should be done to somebody, that they should suffer first before they can be happy—let those go.

Then the fourth step is to be calm, realizing that not everybody’s going to be happy. Not everybody’s going to behave in a skillful way. You have to be equanimous about that fact. You take responsibility for what you’re doing, which is to continue producing thoughts of goodwill. It’s a form of wealth. Unlike the wealth of the world, the more you produce, the greater the value. With the wealth of the world, the more money they produce, the more the money goes down in value.

But as you produce goodwill, keep it in mind—and are determined to keep it in mind—then you become wealthy. You have a source of strength inside when you meet up with difficult people, difficult situations, because the world tends to be kind of defiant: “You want to have goodwill for us? Well, we’re going to show how we can make it hard for you.” That seems to be their attitude. But you’ve still got to have goodwill.

So. Produce as much as you can. Spread it around as much as you can. Be determined on this. In that way, you lift the level of your mind. You’re doing this partly for other beings, but primarily for yourself. You protect yourself both from future bad karma and also from past bad karma. As the Buddha said, if your mind is expansive, then when the results of past bad karma come in, they’re not going to overwhelm the mind, because your mind is so much larger.

So think of these things when goodwill becomes difficult, and be determined to stay on course.