Sunday Morning — Closing
At the end of every retreat, the question always is: How can I take the lessons I learned on the retreat and carry them into my life?
As the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta says, it requires a combination of mindfulness and determination.
Otherwise, it’s all too easy, after you’ve been sitting for several days, thinking thoughts, “May all beings be happy. May all beings be happy,” but then you get in your car to go home, someone cuts in front of you, and you think, “And may this being go to hell!”
So to prevent that, stop to remind yourself of some of the lessons you’ve learned over the past few days.
One is that the brahmavihāras don’t come naturally. Our human goodwill and equanimity are natural, but they tend to be partial. And that partiality means we can’t depend on ourselves to act skillfully in all situations, which means that it’s easy to fall off the path to the end of suffering.
To raise the level of your heart and mind, you have to fabricate new mental states, through using the three fabrications: the way you breathe, the way you talk to yourself, and the perceptions and feelings you focus on.
For example, both for goodwill and for equanimity, breathe in a way that gives rise to a sense of well-being inside. When you’re coming from a sense of well-being, it’s easier to wish for the well-being of others. As Ajaan Lee says, it’s like opening a faucet to a tank full of water: Cool water will come out. If you don’t have a sense of well-being inside, and you try to spread thoughts of goodwill, it’s like opening the faucet to an empty tank. Nothing comes out but air.
That’s bodily fabrication.
With verbal fabrication, talk yourself in ways that encourage you in the practice of goodwill, reminding yourself of how it will give strength to your practice all around.
And as for mental fabrication, think of the images the Buddha and the ajaans give for goodwill: that your goodwill is strong and vast like the Earth, as cool as the River Ganges, as free and wide-open as space. It’s a form of wealth.
Think also of his image of the bandits cutting you up, and of the mother protecting her only child: You have to protect your goodwill with your life.
And remember, goodwill for others doesn’t mean that you simply do what they want. It means that you think about what would be conducive to their true well-being—and especially, what influence you can have on them to get them to behave in skillful ways.
All of that is discernment.
When you keep these lessons in mind, it’s easier to be true to your original determination to practice the brahmavihāras, and you can become more generous with them as well. Remember that goodwill is a form of wealth that you can create from within, and that there’s no reason to put any limit on the amount of wealth you create.
As for calm, remember also to develop equanimity as a back-up for your goodwill, so that you can keep it focused and pure, and you can keep yourself from suffering from your goodwill.
When you determine to keep these lessons in mind, then your practice will grow stronger all around. You stay focused on the desire to find a happiness that causes no harm to anyone—not to yourself, not to other people. You’ll reap the benefits from following through with this desire, now and into the future, and so will all the people around you.
