People are doing things that cause suffering, and everybody would be better off if we learned how to stop

"Your ability to appreciate other people’s happiness is going to help your ability to appreciate your own.

It’s not infrequent when people come to meditate that they gain a sense of pleasure from the meditation and they don’t feel that they’re worthy of it. They feel they don’t deserve it. To get past that feeling, they should look back on their own attitude toward not only their own happiness but also toward other people’s happiness. If you resent other people’s happiness, then it’s going to be hard for you to feel that you deserve happiness. The question of deserving gets in the way.

When the Buddha was teaching, as in that passage we chanted just now on how to put an end to suffering, there was no question about how this teaching was only for people who don’t deserve to suffer. The path to the end of suffering is for everybody, for all kinds of suffering, “deserved” or not. The question never comes up in his teachings — simply the question that people are doing things that cause suffering, and everybody would be better off if we learned how to stop. It would be better for us, better for people around us.

So it’s good to stop and develop an attitude of empathetic joy for all the goodness that people have done, and anumodanā: thoughts of approval for the goodness that people have done. That allows you to relate to your own happiness in a healthier way."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness"

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