One, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You wish other beings would be able to develop their inner resources, too.

"You look in the texts and you see that breath meditation and the development of the goodwill, the brahmavihāras, are listed as separate techniques, but in practice they really come together. In the process of working with the breath, you’re learning lessons in how to make yourself happy, how to develop a sense of pleasure within. Once you have that sense of pleasure, that sense of well-being, then it’s a lot easier to spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā] in an unlimited way. Because if you’re feeling put upon, feeling simply the desire to run away, it’s hard to wish happiness for anybody, much less happiness for all living beings unconditionally.

Once you develop the sense of pleasure, the lessons in happiness that you can learn from the breath are that, one, you understand what happiness is all about, and, two, you’ve got it. You’re in a position where you want to share. You also understand what you’re doing when you wish happiness for other beings. You wish that they, too, could develop their inner resources."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Lessons in Happiness"

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