Goodwill as Restraint
July 25, 2015
There’s a passage where the Buddha talks about the development of goodwill—and by implication all the other sublime attitudes—as a form of restraint. We don’t usually think about goodwill in those terms. We think of it more as an opening of the heart, letting all its natural goodness come pouring out. But then, of course, the Buddha never said anything about natural goodness. He said the mind is very changeable. It’s capable of all kinds of things and it can change so quickly that even saying, “in the flash of an eye” is too slow. And as for pouring out, that’s what the word asava means—effluent—and that’s something we’re trying to overcome.