希修 #78. [Source] "Metta Means Goodwill" (Not Lovingkindness) https://www.dhammatalks.org/.../Beyon.../Section0007.html...
[Extract] ... ... Metta is a wish for happiness—true happiness. ... ... Many people define it as “lovingkindness,” implying a desire to be there for other people: to cherish them, to provide them with intimacy, nurture, and protection. ... ... But ... there are a lot of them who—like the snake—would react to your lovingkindness with suspicion and fear. Rather than wanting your love, they would rather be left alone. Others might try to take unfair advantage of your lovingkindness, reading it as a sign either of your weakness or of your endorsement of whatever they want to do. In none of these cases would your lovingkindness lead to anyone’s true happiness.
... metta is not necessarily an attitude of lovingkindness. It’s more an attitude of goodwill—wishing the other person well, but realizing that true happiness is something that each of us ultimately will have to find for him or herself, and sometimes most easily when we go our separate ways.
... ... The Buddha never recommends developing universal pema—for, as he notes, love can easily lead to hatred when the people you love are ill-treated by others—but he does recommend developing universal metta: friendliness for all. The fact that this friendliness equates with goodwill is shown in the four passages in the Canon where the Buddha recommends phrases to hold in mind when developing thoughts of metta.
(1) "May these beings—free from animosity, free from oppression, and free from trouble—look after themselves with ease." — AN 10:176
... ... You’re not saying that you’re going to be there for all beings all the time. ... ... “May all beings be happy. May they be able to look after themselves with ease.” That way they can have the happiness of independence and self-reliance.
(2) "Let no one deceive another
or despise anyone anywhere,
or through anger or resistance
wish for another to suffer." — Karaṇīya Metta Sutta
... you wish not only that beings be happy, but also that they avoid the actions that would lead to bad karma, to their own unhappiness. ... For people to find true happiness, they have to understand the causes for happiness and act on them. They also have to understand that true happiness is harmless. If it depends on something that harms others, it’s not going to last.
So again, when you express goodwill, you’re not saying that you’re going to be there for them all the time. You’re hoping that all beings will wise up about how to find happiness and be there for themselves.
(3) "As a mother would risk her life
to protect her child, her only child,
even so should one cultivate a limitless heart
with regard to all beings." — Karaṇīya Metta Sutta
... ... instead of drawing a parallel between protecting your only child and protecting other beings, he draws the parallel between protecting the child and protecting your goodwill. This fits in with his other teachings in the Canon. Nowhere does he tell people to throw down their lives to prevent every cruelty and injustice in the world, but he does praise his followers for being willing to throw down their lives for their precepts. ... ... This is why the Buddha explicitly recommends developing thoughts of metta in two situations where it’s especially important—and especially difficult—to maintain skillful motivation: when others are hurting you, and when you realize that you’ve hurt others. ... ...
(4) "I have made this safeguard,
I have made this protection.
May the beings depart." — AN 4:67
... the truth that living together is often difficult ... and the happiest policy for all concerned is often to live harmlessly apart.
... ... Metta is better thought of as goodwill, and for two reasons. The first is that goodwill is an attitude you can express for everyone without fear of being hypocritical or unrealistic. It recognizes that people will become truly happy not as a result of your caring for them but as a result of their own skillful actions, and that the happiness of self-reliance is greater than any happiness that comes from dependency. The second reason is that goodwill is a more skillful feeling to have toward those who would react unskillfully to your lovingkindness. ... ... people you’ve harmed in the past ... ... people who, when they see that you want to express lovingkindness, would be quick to take advantage of it. ... ...
... ... If you truly feel metta for yourself and others, you can’t let your desire for warm feelings of love and intimacy render you insensitive to what would actually be the most skillful way to promote true happiness for all.
[cf.] Mettā (Goodwill)
(i) #78. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1072471653124917&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(ii) #169. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103916179980464&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(iii) #170. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103917406647008&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(iv) #171. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103917983313617&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(v) #180. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103963433309072&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(vi) #181. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1104038103301605&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(vii) #182. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1104735436565205&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
[cf.] Whom, when, how and how much to help:
(viii) #111. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1081575188881230&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(ix) #149. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1094889330883149&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(x) #44~#51. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1068501266855289&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
(xi) #172. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103918676646881&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
[希修] You don't even have to try hard to like, please, pamper, think positively of, take care of or maintain a 'happy' personal relationship with someone. As long as you wish the person to reach true happiness on her own! by thinking, speaking and acting 'skillfully' (with no or less greed, anger and delusion/ignorance), it is goodwill (metta). As long as you drop your desire to revenge, it is forgiving. The essence of all these five (forgiving and the four sublime states) is in fact the accurate understanding of karma; they are not about being gullible or self-sacrificing but about cause and effect.
Why does anyone help other beings? (a) Because goodness or virtue helps to mitigate the consequences of one's own past bad karmas; (b) Because suffering tends to spill over and spreads to everyone around; (c) Because even those who made some bad karmas in the past deserve compassion. Although Buddhism says that everyone deserves compassion (the kind of mind a medical doctor would have toward a patient), Buddhism does not say everyone deserves love automatically.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1089258058112943&set=a.1042727616099321&type=3&theater
* metta, goodwill, not lovingkindness, true happiness, action, skillful, harmless, independence, self-reliance.
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希修
< Karaniya Metta Sutta: Goodwill >
This is to be done by one skilled in aims
who wants to break through to the state of peace:
Be capable, upright, & straightforward,
easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited,
content & easy to support,
with few duties, living lightly,
with peaceful faculties, masterful,
modest, & no greed for supporters.
Do not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later censure.
Think: Happy, at rest,
may all beings be happy at heart.
Whatever beings there may be,
weak or strong, without exception,
long, large,
middling, short,
subtle, blatant,
seen & unseen,
near & far,
born & seeking birth:
May all beings be happy at heart.
Let no one deceive another
or despise anyone anywhere,
or through anger or irritation
wish for another to suffer.
As a mother would risk her life
to protect her child, her only child,
even so should one cultivate a limitless heart
with regard to all beings.
With good will for the entire cosmos,
cultivate a limitless heart:
Above, below, & all around,
unobstructed, without enmity or hate.
Whether standing, walking,
sitting, or lying down,
as long as one is alert,
one should be resolved on this mindfulness.
This is called a sublime abiding
here & now.
Not taken with views,
but virtuous & consummate in vision,
having subdued desire for sensual pleasures,
one never again
will lie in the womb.
希修
Around 6:40 in the clip, Ven. Thanissaro starts talking about a Thai lady in whose dream a spirit showed up and said "I want to use you as a medium. If you don't work for me, your father and your mother will die." But this lady refused to do so saying "My parents will die sooner or later anyway". Ven. Thanissaro comments that she had a good discernment and also that you should never give up your virtue or the right view. This means, this lady's choice is NOT against goodwill or compassion toward her parents.
Every single medium, channeler, shaman or fortuneteller says that they do what they do in order to 'help' other people with their suffering. And, at the human level, this does sound like a very 'compassionate' and 'noble' intention. Nevertheless, the Gautama Buddha explicitly forbids any such activity. The Buddha says that no religious service/ritual/gift, no person, not even the Buddha himself can help you with your karmas let alone 'saving' you. Your own practice following the Buddha's teaching is the only thing that will help you with your suffering, he says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-0lYJT-Iy0...
YOUTUBE.COM
200331 Worry \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu \ \ Dhamma Talk200331 Worry \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu \ \ Dhamma Talk
Antony Woods
"If you think of goodwill as lovingkindness and you’re there like the mother protecting her only child, as some people believe that passage in the Karaniya Metta Sutta says, it becomes pretty oppressive — and very inflated. How are you going to go running around protecting everybody the way a mother would protect her child? It’s hard enough to protect one child, much less all beings. But actually, the Buddha’s saying in that passage that you’ve got to protect your goodwill, both for yourself and for others, as a mother would protect her child. That’s something you can actually do."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill in Action" https://www.dhammatalks.org/.../141201_Goodwill_in_Action...
希修
Dear Antony, I am deeply grateful that you always share so much.
