A woman said to the Buddha: “I want happiness.” The Buddha replied: “Throw away “I”, which is ego. Throw away “want”, which is greed. You are then left with “Happiness” and nothing else.”
Similarly, don’t think about wanting love for yourself. Instead, make yourself lovely by loving others. However, you will only be able to love others if you have built up your capacity. You can’t pour from an empty cup. You can build up that capacity through self-cultivation in abandonment of greed, hatred and delusion, which is essential to perfect your virtue, equanimity and wisdom. When you become lovely, you will be a magnet which attracts the right kind of love towards you, although you don’t think about wanting love from others.
It’s a luxury to talk about happiness if you are a beggar. It is difficult to help others if you are a beggar because you just don’t have the capacity or capability. You are already a beggar if you are one who is always expecting help and charity from others. You are already a beggar if you are a taker instead of a giver in terms of material and sense of wellbeing. Obviously, you won’t find helping others can bring you any happiness, no matter how much the preachers harangue you to do charity. Common people, especially capitalists, only feel happy when their greed and desires are satisfied. They are just beggars.
If you are awakened to the truth that begging and receiving profits/benefits, satisfying your greed and desires, is not really so honourable, you will then want to be a giver even though you are not financially rich. You will then truly feel happy in helping others, but dislike receiving help.
Feeling happy in helping others requires mental strength and wisdom. The same goes for forgiveness. It is not easy to do for common people. Harangue to do charity may “force” religious followers to abide but they may not feel happy. Instead, they may feel proud or unhappy. They may hate the recipients for lacking self-accountability. We must not expect too much from common people.
RESILIENT KID 