Goodwill First & Last
November 20, 2008
It’s traditional to begin and end each session of meditation with thoughts of goodwill for all beings without exception. The purpose in each case is different. In the beginning, you start the meditation with thoughts of goodwill as a way of putting the mind in the right frame, in the right context to meditate. You want to pull yourself out of your own little personal narrative, the events of the day, and take a larger view before you settle down and look at the present moment. If you don’t, it’s very likely that you’ll take your narrative into the present moment with you. If it’s an unpleasant narrative, it makes the present moment unpleasant as well. If it’s been a bad day and you sit down and try to get the mind into the present moment to stay with the breath and you find it doesn’t stay with the breath: If you’ve been down on yourself in the course of the day, you get down on yourself even more. You’re a miserable meditator. You can’t do it. See? you keep wandering off the breath. More proof that you’re miserable.