Our first order of business in being kind to others and showing true goodwill is to develop our own skillfulness, because one way of encouraging other people to become skillful is to have ourselves as an example.
"Ordinary happiness — the happiness of the body eating, sleeping, getting the things it wants — involves conflict because there are only so many resources in the world, and the fact that we need to eat and have clothing, shelter, and medicine means we’re a burden on the rest of the world. So that kind of happiness inevitably brings conflict, which is why the desire for release from all this is not a selfish thing.
Now, we can’t release other people. The reason we’re tied up in this world of wandering on is because of our own lack of skillfulness. The same holds true for others: They’re tied up by their lack of skillfulness, too. We can learn to be skillful but we can’t make other people skillful. You can teach them how, but it’s up to them to want to do it, and it’s up to them to put in the necessary effort.
So our first order of business in being kind to others and showing true goodwill is to develop our own skillfulness, because one way of encouraging other people to become skillful is to have ourselves as an example. When people see that we’re happier than we were before, they’ll be interested: “How did you do this? What kind of food are you eating? What kind of exercise are you doing?” You can respond, “It’s not exercise, it’s not so much the food, it’s training the mind.” Some people will say, “Oh,” and that’ll be the end of the matter. But other people will say, “Oh, tell me about it.”
So this practice we’re doing is not a selfish thing. And the Buddha ultimately saw no clear dividing line between working for your own happiness, your own true happiness, and working for the true happiness of others — as in that famous sutta on the acrobats, where the acrobat tells his assistant, “You get up on my shoulders, and I’ll get up on a bamboo pole. Then you look out after me, and I’ll look out after you, and that way, we’ll come down safely.” His assistant says, “No, that’s not going to work. I have to look out after myself, you have to look out after yourself. In other words, I have to maintain my balance, you have to maintain your balance, and that way we help each other come down safely from the pole.”
As the Buddha commented, in that particular exchange, the assistant was the one who was right. But then he goes on to say that when you help yourself, you help others; when you help others, you help yourself."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill"
Now, we can’t release other people. The reason we’re tied up in this world of wandering on is because of our own lack of skillfulness. The same holds true for others: They’re tied up by their lack of skillfulness, too. We can learn to be skillful but we can’t make other people skillful. You can teach them how, but it’s up to them to want to do it, and it’s up to them to put in the necessary effort.
So our first order of business in being kind to others and showing true goodwill is to develop our own skillfulness, because one way of encouraging other people to become skillful is to have ourselves as an example. When people see that we’re happier than we were before, they’ll be interested: “How did you do this? What kind of food are you eating? What kind of exercise are you doing?” You can respond, “It’s not exercise, it’s not so much the food, it’s training the mind.” Some people will say, “Oh,” and that’ll be the end of the matter. But other people will say, “Oh, tell me about it.”
So this practice we’re doing is not a selfish thing. And the Buddha ultimately saw no clear dividing line between working for your own happiness, your own true happiness, and working for the true happiness of others — as in that famous sutta on the acrobats, where the acrobat tells his assistant, “You get up on my shoulders, and I’ll get up on a bamboo pole. Then you look out after me, and I’ll look out after you, and that way, we’ll come down safely.” His assistant says, “No, that’s not going to work. I have to look out after myself, you have to look out after yourself. In other words, I have to maintain my balance, you have to maintain your balance, and that way we help each other come down safely from the pole.”
As the Buddha commented, in that particular exchange, the assistant was the one who was right. But then he goes on to say that when you help yourself, you help others; when you help others, you help yourself."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill"
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