The only way all beings could be happy is if everybody acted skillfully

"Each of us is the owner and doer of actions. And so you don’t want to cause people to do things that will make them suffer, and at the same time you don’t want to do anything that is going to make yourself suffer. It’s a pretty radical view of our relationships.

We like to think that we can make other people happy by being nice to them, and there is a certain pleasure they can get when we’re nice to them, but that doesn’t necessarily make them happy. You’ve probably seen many cases where you’ve tried your best to be nice to somebody and they’re not happy. They’ve got their own karma.

This is especially clear when people are suffering from a mental illness, when they’re getting old and sick, or when a baby is newly born. You can’t talk to the baby and make things okay. You realize that what we experience is our own actions. We do have an impact on other people, but the major impact is through what we get them to do.

So we want to look for happiness in a way that inspires other people to look for happiness in a way that’s skillful too. If everybody could meditate, if everybody could develop good qualities of mind and find a sense of well-being inside, then there would be a possibility that all living beings would be happy. That’s the only way it can happen."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Raise Your Standards"

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