During a recent committee meeting at my local Dhamma center, we discussed alternative ways to encourage service because our meditation center, like many other Dhamma centers, is working through server shortages. This essay is my attempt to dive deeper into mettā and service and how they are essential for a complete practice.

This mind 

waits to enlight,

to befriend.

Simply remains still

holding close,

for a moment of awareness from within.

Elaborating on the assertion that all beings seek happiness, the Buddha declared it impossible for anyone to be truly happy if he or she does not refrain from whatever harms the peace and harmony of others.

Since his teaching entered my life, I have recognized in my quest for personal happiness a social responsibility: my duty to be happy for the welfare of others. After all, no-one is interested in the hurtful things that I sometimes say about them, in enduring my blame and annoyance, in witnessing my worries and anxiety attacks, or in my insistence that things go my way.