Goodwill Is Respect
July 19, 2023

One of the most common ways in which people excuse their cruel behavior to other beings—other people, other animals—is by saying that those people, those animals, don’t matter. We can depopulate the world because people are redundant. We can do what we like with animals because they’re weaker than we are. So a lot of the cruelty of the world, the really unskillful behavior we see around us, is caused by the fact that we don’t respect one another.

When we practice the brahmaviharas—and particularly goodwill for all beings—it means that we respect one another. Even little tiny beings want their pleasure, they want their happiness. You have to realize that if your happiness depends on the suffering of others, it’s not going to last. One, they’re going to try to do what they can to destroy it if they can. And two, it’s just a fact of karma. The fact that you’re making your happiness rely on other beings’ suffering means that you’re creating the conditions for your own suffering.

So an attitude of goodwill is an attitude of respect: respect for one another, respect for the principle of karma. We have to learn that respect both inside and out, because after all, you’re one of those living beings who wants to be happy and you have to learn how to respect your desire for happiness. You might say, “Well, that’s obvious,” but there are so many ways in which we sabotage our true happiness.

The voice of the commentator in the mind, which is one of the roles that our self plays, can often be very cruel, harsh, filled with ill will. That’s a lack of respect. So that voice has to be trained, because we do need a good commentator. As the Buddha said, you nourish the Dhamma by committing yourself to it and then reflecting on it. In other words, you do what’s required. The Buddha says you observe the precepts, so you observe the precepts and you try really sincerely to do it well. Try to get the mind concentrated. You don’t just brush it off, saying, “Gee, thinking about concentration sounds really tense. I’d rather have a path that’s easy and more relaxed.” Even if concentration doesn’t come easily to you, it’s a necessary part of the path, so you have to do your best to give rise to it within you.

The same with discernment, seeing where you’re clinging to things, seeing where you’re craving things, often things that you like an awful lot: As you learn to reflect that these clingings and cravings really are suffering and are causing suffering, then you’re willing to give it a try to really let them go, put them aside.

As you do that, there has to be somebody inside watching to see how well it’s going. That’s the reflecting part. When you’re observing the precepts, difficult issues are going to come up. There will be times when you’ll know information, and other people want to know that information, but you realize that they’re going to abuse it. So how do you avoid divulging the information without lying at the same time?

I was reading a Mahayana piece saying basically that wisdom around the precepts means knowing when to observe the precepts and when not to observe them. That’s not genuine wisdom. That’s just the common worldly attitude: You hold by your principles when it’s convenient, and you drop them when it’s not. But the Buddha says you hold by the precepts no matter what, especially when it’s inconvenient. That’s where your discernment gets trained.

So you need the commentator inside to give you advice, recommend areas where you could use some improvement, and how you might go about improving. That’s the kind of commentator you want. That’s the commentator that respects you and respects your desire for happiness. So just as the commentator trains other parts of your sense of self—the self that’s acting to find happiness, and the self that hopes to experience happiness—the commentator also needs to be trained to have an attitude of respect.

This is why we consciously develop thoughts of goodwill. It’s not that goodwill is our innate nature. Goodwill comes easily to us in some cases, and ill will comes just as easily in others. That’s the typical human attitude. What we’re trying to develop are Brahma attitudes, and those are higher, more refined, more inclusive: goodwill for all, everybody without exception.

So you have to learn how to talk to yourself. Use all the different forms of fabrication—bodily, verbal, and mental—to foster a really heartfelt attitude of goodwill. You learn how to breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being in the body. You allow the breath. Notice that: You allow it. You can’t make yourself breathe comfortably. Sometimes, the harder you try to make it comfortable, the more you tie yourself up in knots. It’s more a matter of getting out of the way.

We tend to use the breath energy in the body a lot as we think, as we go through the day. So we’re converting it to our purposes, and sometimes we end up feeling really tired. You may not have done much physically in the course of the day, but your mental activity has been wearing out the breath energy because you’re not giving it full room in your body. So give it the whole body. The whole body can breathe in, the whole body can breathe out, and you’re not going to interfere. When the body gets nourished in this way, it’s a lot easier to have thoughts of goodwill for others because you’re not making yourself suffer.

It’s the same with the way you talk to yourself, this commentator inside. You’ve got to train it. One way of training it to be more respectful of your own wishes for happiness is to work on empathetic joy. Of the brahmaviharas, that’s the one that gets the least press, the least notice. But it’s really important, because if you can’t rejoice in other people’s happiness, then what you are doing wishing happiness for all beings? If you see someone else is happy and you resent their happiness, something’s wrong. You have to keep reminding yourself that whatever happiness other people have right now, you’ve been there. Whatever suffering you can see around you, you’ve been there as well. When you can develop respect for other people’s happiness this way, then it’s a lot easier for the voices inside your mind to have some respect for your own happiness.

So the respect goes both ways, inside and outside. Beings that you used to tell yourself, “They don’t matter”: You have to take their happiness into consideration.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you let them chase you away from where you want to practice.

That chant we had just now about the goodwill for the families of snakes comes from a story. There was a monk who was sitting under a tree. A snake fell on him, bit him, and he died. The monks went and told this to the Buddha, and the Buddha said, “Well, it’s obvious that he never spread goodwill to the families of snakes.” So he teaches them the chant. It spreads thoughts of goodwill for all beings, but then it says that the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha are limitless. There’s a limit to creeping beings. So may they go away.

This is a chant for people who are planning to practice. And it’s only fair. If you have respect for other being’s happiness and you’re trying to find a harmless happiness through the practice, then you can ask for a little bit of respect from them as well.

There are lots of stories throughout the forest tradition about monks who go into dangerous areas. They’re basically saying in their minds to all the beings around them, “I’m here to practice the Dhamma, I’m not here to take your place away from you. I have goodwill for you, and if you want to have some of the merit that comes from my practice, please give me a space to practice.”

I had a couple of incidents like this when I was in Thailand. There was one time when I was the only monk in the monastery. We had some valuable tools in two different spots in the monastery. So I realized I had to spend the night between those two spots. The only place that could do that was in a little tiny shed that was filled with little bugs, kind of like potato bugs. There were thousands of them crawling all over the place. So I swept a little area for my umbrella tent, meditated, and spread goodwill to them. And I said, “Please don’t come into my tent. This is all I ask of this space. You can have the whole rest of the building,” because the last thing I wanted was one of those bugs to crawl into my ear and get stuck. And sure enough, they stayed just outside the edge of my mosquito net. They could have crawled in very easily, but they didn’t.

The basic principle is that if you show respect to other beings and you’re here to do good, it’s perfectly fine for you to ask for some respect from them. Promise to share the merit of your practice with them.

So when you come with an attitude of goodwill, you’re coming with an attitude of respect. Sometimes you’ll be surprised at the respect you get in return.