Someone asked Pra Ajarn to expand on a teaching about how to become likeable — that if we want others to love us, we need to know how to make ourselves lovable, through four principles.

First: Learn to Give

Give — whether it's love, a smile, forgiveness, material things, or even knowledge.

Pra Ajarn explained that this is a quality of the wholesome side. When the wholesome side guides us, we're happy to give love, smiles, forgiveness, and knowledge to others easily. But when the unwholesome side is behind our behavior, its goal is to create division, because division makes people easier to control. It leads us to be selfish, taking without giving — unwilling to offer love or sincerity to anyone, unwilling even to smile, wearing a scowl all day, let alone offering forgiveness. All of this is guided by something behind the scenes — it's not simply our own idea.

When we give, the stream of merit flows in, bringing refined qualities and a blueprint of success along with it, clearing away defilement and refining the dimension we occupy. What we give returns to us in a more refined form: give love, and love comes back; give a smile, and smiles come back; give goodwill, and goodwill comes back. Everything we give has its result.

Second: Use Words That Are Loved

Speak kindly — true words, words that are useful and beneficial, spoken gently and politely.

Pra Ajarn explained that when we use our mouths to speak good things, the stream of merit flows through and purifies our voice, granting a kind of "privilege" (abhisitthi). In a future life, when this merit ripens, our words carry weight and authority — people stop to listen and heed what we say.

On the other hand, if we let our mouths speak idle chatter or gossip and slander, the unwholesome side inserts unwholesome karma every time, eroding the power and authority of our speech. In a future life, our words carry no value, and no one wants to listen. Pra Ajarn gave the example of singers: some have such a beautiful voice that they earn millions, while others sing passably but no one wants to hear them. This is the result of speech from past lives — those who once offered kind, true, and beneficial words to others find their voice becomes, in this life, a source of wealth and joy for those who hear it.

Third: Behave Well and Help Others

If we're able to help someone in any way, we should — with physical strength, with intelligence, with whatever we have. When we help someone succeed at something, they come to love us for it.

Pra Ajarn gave the example of a distinctive Thai habit: seeing a broken-down car on the roadside, many Thai drivers will turn back even after passing by, to ask if help is needed. This is the wholesome side's inner voice, which leaves us uneasy if we don't stop to help. But when the unwholesome side takes hold, it discourages us from helping anyone at all, making us into people without kindness — and because we've never helped others, we accumulate no merit from it either, which makes it harder for others to want to help us in turn, since the same inner reluctance echoes in them that once echoed in us.

Helping others requires sacrifice — of time, physical effort, and heart. To be able to give in this way, one must be genuinely kind-hearted. When someone we've helped succeeds, they remember our kindness, and the mutual support formed in the present carries forward into the future — even if, reborn into new lives as strangers to one another, that inner connection still draws people back together to help each other again.

Fourth: Behave Appropriately to One's Role, Consistently

Whether as a parent, a child, an employer, an employee, or simply a fellow traveler through birth, aging, sickness, and death, we should behave appropriately and consistently — not according to shifting moods. Pra Ajarn explained that good manners arise from the wholesome side taking residence within us, while poor conduct and a lack of manners come from the unwholesome side's guidance, leading employers to dislike us, subordinates to look down on us, and others to avoid our company.

Pra Ajarn gave the example that some five-star hotels in Japan decline to host mainland Chinese tourists, viewing them as lacking manners, while welcoming Chinese-heritage guests from Thailand, seen as better mannered. This shows that manners are something trainable, with a clear effect on how others receive us.

Repeated inappropriate behavior becomes karmic residue that follows us across lifetimes — because each time the unwholesome side guides us and we act on it successfully, it crystallizes into an unwholesome "blueprint of success," stored within the sphere of Dhamma, waiting to bear its result somewhere along our life's future timeline.

Summary: The Four Bases of Social Harmony, and Recognizing the Voice Behind Our Moods

Pra Ajarn summarized the four bases of social harmony (sangahavatthu): first, learning to give — material things, love, smiles, forgiveness, and knowledge; second, using words that are loved and sincere; third, helping and supporting others with physical and emotional effort; and fourth, behaving appropriately and consistently, not according to passing moods — because behind every bad mood, there is always something guiding it from the unwholesome side.

Pra Ajarn advised that when we notice a negative thought or mood arising, the most important thing is simply to be aware — this is mindfulness (sati). Without that awareness, it becomes ignorance (avijja) instead. Once mindfulness is established, ignorance falls away, and mindfulness draws in pure energy that purifies defilement. Simply recognizing what's happening, then settling and staying still, allows the coarse waves of thought to gradually refine, and the mind develops step by step.