GOODWILL

Dear Harry,

I have told you before about metta, the practice with which I have learned to started my daily meditation. It involves sending out thoughts of goodwill and compassion, first to myself, then to those close to me, and then, in ever expanding circles to those I like, those I hardly know, and those I don't know at all. It includes, too, those that I dislike. Which is the hard part. 

I was reminded of just how hard it can be this morning when I sat and tried to get past my anger and despair at the willful ignorance, stupidity, or yes just plain evil that seems to affect many of my fellow citizens these days. I was listening, yesterday, to still more reports about those millions of Americans who put their political adulation of one misguided, would-be autocratic former leader over their own interests, risking their health and even death in preference to listening to the voice of science, medicine, reason. Refusing to take sensible and proven life-saving precautions (vaccination, masks) in the face of this still-uncontrolled and deadly epidemic, they put not only their own health and lives at risk, but those of their families, their neighbors, and the national community at large. 

Worse, in my view, are the wicked ones--the ones who knowingly promulgate the half-truths and outright lies that promote this lunacy. There is, first and foremost, the man at the top of this toxic food chain, the man who formerly occupied the most powerful office in the world. Then come those who support him in his outrageous mendacity and, perhaps worst, the men and women of the media who make it their business to serve him as his propaganda machine. 

So when I sit and try to send out thoughts of goodwill and compassion to these people, I run headlong into the power of my judgment. This army of Americans who reject the factual knowledge of science and medicine are either stupid, I tell myself, or evil. How, then, to wish them well?  Quite honestly, Harry, it's a struggle. I try reminding myself that I am not the all-knowing one, that there are others who hold different views than mine. But if those views are so clearly--it seems to me!--delusional, how to be sympathetic to them.

Of course, when I send out that first, most basic wish--"May they find true happiness in their lives--it would seem to presuppose the surrender of their delusions. True happiness, from the Buddhist perspective as I've learned it, can't co-exist with animosity and lies. To wish these people well is not to share their misconceptions, nor to approve them. It's to wish for freedom from them. The world would be a better place were all of us--"those people" included--were to find true happiness. Once I get to this place in my mind I find that I can move ahead.

So there we are, Harry. Let's keep sending out those thoughts of goodwill. For all we're worth.

With love, Peter