Goodwill & Heedfulness (extract)

"Some people actually find it easier to start with thoughts of goodwill [mettā] for someone who’s been a benefactor, a person who has helped them. Whoever you find it easiest, start with that person first. Think about what it means to have goodwill for that person. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be there for that person all the time, simply that whatever you do or say or think that’s going to have an impact on that person, you don’t want it to harm them. If possible, you want them to act to skillfully, too. Because it’s not that the case that your wishing them happiness is going to be like a magic wand that will light up a little light someplace in their head. After all, there is that phrase: “May they look after themselves with ease,” in other words, may they know how to behave in such a way that actually does lead to true happiness.

This is where goodwill goes deeper than just hoping that people have a nice life. You hope that they, too, will act on skillful intentions. Is there any way that you can help that person act on skillful intentions? Think about this.

In other words, metta is not just a process of repeating a phrase over and over in your head. You contemplate the quality of goodwill and what it really means to have goodwill in the context of kamma, in the context of that principle of heedfulness.

The same applies when you extend thoughts of goodwill to yourself. You say to yourself: “May I be happy.” So, what kind of happiness do you want? There’s a lot that has been written on people who feel they don’t deserve to be happy. In fact, I was reading recently a Dhamma teacher saying that most people don’t have enough time when they’re on weeklong metta retreats to think about anybody else, so they should focus all of their goodwill on themselves as a healing process. If you have trouble wishing for your own true happiness, then you may want to spend extra time here.

But you can’t stop here. Remember, the whole purpose of this is to be skillful in your actions and to try to develop an attitude that there’s nobody out there that you’d like to harm. So spend some time on yourself and think about what it would mean to truly have a goodwill for yourself. It doesn’t mean eating a lot of Dove chocolates or indulging little pleasures. It means trying to act in a skillful way, realizing that your actions will have consequences that can go many times farther than you might even think. So in this case, having goodwill for yourself means being mindful, being alert."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill & Heedfulness"