There’s Good in Each of Us

If you wish to progress in your practice it is very important to think positively of others. This is more than doable because every person has something positive or admirable about them. Merely by the fact of being human – of all the six different classes of beings, humans are rare and special – so if we make the effort to look we will see that each person definitely possesses good characteristics.
It is not necessarily for the other person’s sake that we consciously think positively about them but for our own. Doing so will make our own mind more peaceful and at ease, and more amenable to virtue.
Let’s say that I dislike someone, if I let my mind dwell on all the things about the person that get under my skin, I will be cast again and again into negative states of mind each time I see the person. And not only that person, having let myself stew in negative thoughts about these traits that annoy me, I will start to notice them in other people, and before long I will hardly have a good thought to think about anyone, even those who I know to be basically good and decent people.
What’s more, unbeknownst to us, our negative thoughts will be written on our face and displayed in our actions, and those we are thinking negatively about will notice this, and will feel uncomfortable, thinking that we do not like them, etc. So they in turn will react negatively towards us, which further reinforces our negative states of mind.
So it should be clear how such a habit can lead us to ever lower states of misery and darkness, and the opposite, focusing on people’s positive traits, will lead us to exponentially brighter and more joyful states of mind.