Living with Few Duties

There's a lot of wisdom—the kind of wisdom that one finds across cultures, though in different ways and different words—in these opening lines to the Mettā Sutta: > This is to be done by one skilled in aims > appreciating the state of peace: > Be capable, upright, & straightforward, > easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited, > content & easy to support, > with few duties, living lightly, > with peaceful faculties, astute, > modest, & no greed for supporters. This passage came to mind today in thinking about my various projects. Living "lightly" and with "few duties" has become something of a mantra of mine lately, a useful corrective for my drivenness. It calls to mind Thoreau's admonition toward simplicity: "I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail." But the whole sutta is bracing. Being "easy to instruct" is a fascinating instruction. We rarely think about open-mindedness and open-to-correction as virtues, but note its continuity with the earliest teachings on anti-dogmatism. Notice the twice-repeated concern for peace and peacefulness. Notice the teacher instructing supporters not to be greedy for more supporters! And that's before the sutta even gets to the topic of mettā. Are we to take from this that practicing goodwill gets easier when we ourselves are at peace?