If you have goodwill (mettā) for yourself and goodwill for others, it’s a lot easier to act on skillful motives, to do skillful things. Goodwill is a motivation for the precepts.

"If you have goodwill [mettā] for yourself and goodwill for others, it’s a lot easier to act on skillful motives, to do skillful things.

So how do you develop goodwill? You remind yourself of where happiness comes from: It comes from the mind and it gets expressed through your actions. Your actions can have an influence on your happiness and the happiness of others, so you want to be very careful about what you do and don’t do. This is why the precepts are a part of goodwill, an expression of goodwill. And goodwill is a motivation for the precepts.

Not only that: The Buddha said that one of the best things you can do for someone else, if you’re really working for their benefit, is to get them to observe the precepts, too. Now, you can’t go around telling people they have to do this. You can tell your children and teach them. But the best way to teach them, of course, is to set an example. So you look at your precepts. Where are they still lacking? This is one way you can be kinder to yourself and kinder to others. It’s interesting that the Buddha says that to work for your own benefit is to observe the precepts; to work for the benefit of others is to get them to observe the precepts. If you’re breaking the precepts, you’re working for your own affliction. And it follows that if you’re getting other people to break the precepts, you’re working for their affliction. Notice, afflicting others doesn’t mean hurting their feelings. It means teaching them the wrong things to do or giving the wrong example for them to do — because they’re active beings too, and they’ll have to meet with the results of their karma.

So you start with goodwill for yourself, spread it around to people for whom it’s easy to feel goodwill, and then you start extending the boundaries: Are there people out there that you have trouble feeling goodwill for?

Some people say that they have trouble feeling goodwill for themselves even to begin with. That attitude is picked up from some very unhealthy attitudes and influences in our culture, and you have to argue with that. In some systems of thought, the idea is that good actions come from putting other people ahead of yourself, and that one way of putting them ahead of yourself is to make yourself feel miserable about yourself — that you’re an unworthy person, you’re not worthy of being happy. Other people somehow are.

But that’s not a healthy way of approaching the project. The healthy way is to realize that we all want happiness, and there’s nothing wrong with that desire. It’s simply that we have to learn how to behave more skillfully so that we can actually attain it. The question of deserving or not deserving doesn’t come into the equation. So you have to keep reminding yourself: There’s nothing wrong with the desire to be happy, especially if the desire is approached skillfully, i.e., you want to find a happiness that’s harmless. Then, when you do, you’ll be in a better position to work for the happiness of others.

So start with goodwill for yourself, and then spread it out. If you find anybody outside for whom you have trouble feeling goodwill — either because they’ve harmed you, or harmed people you love, or harmed people you care about or feel sorry for — remind yourself: Nothing is accomplished by making those people suffer. There’s no need for them to suffer before they can come to their senses and realize that they’re actions are wrong. Remember that they, too, are active beings, and goodwill means wishing for the happiness that comes from their own actions. In other words, they have to see that what they’re doing is wrong and that they want to change their ways. That’s what you’re wishing for when you spread goodwill to others.

When you think about it for a while, it’s not all that difficult. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have goodwill for anybody. Keep this up until you genuinely can tell yourself, “Yes. I have no ill will for anyone. I don’t want to see anyone doing harmful things.”"

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill, Gratitude, No Guilt"