Cultivate what?

Cultivate an attitude of friendship for those who are happy. 

Cultivate compassion for those who are suffering. 

Cultivate an attitude of cheerfulness toward those who seem to be virtuous. 

Cultivate an attitude of indifference toward those who do not seem to be virtuous.

 

From Death to Birth: Understanding Karma and Reincarnation

by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait 

 

Very wonderfully said.

 

Try to be friends with people who are happy. Their happiness will rub on you as well. Happiness is contagious. It's hard not to be happy around happy people. Happier you are, more people you are going to make happy by your mere existence.

 

People suffer from real or perceived pains. Be compassionate towards them. Remember that in some cases compassion means doing nothing. Because you may not understand their suffering which may be there to help them grow. If you help prematurely or when not needed, you may hurt more than help. On this point, an old post comes to mind.

Cheerfulness towards virtuous. Virtuous people serve as ready reminders for us to be like them all the time. Even when you lack one or more virtues and want to be like those people, just having such role models around you helps. This may be the reason that all schools of spirituality put heavy emphasis on 'satsang'. That means to be in the company of good people.

Indifference sometimes comes with some sort of dry and negative connotation. Here it seems to mean detachment. Non-virtuous people are not necessarily bad. It's just that you want to have least possible interactions with them. They are like weeds. Once you start blocking water and nutrients to weeds, they whither away. So once you stop paying attention to non-virtuous people, they fade away. Even if they stay in your life and cause problems, be assured that such a thing was meant to happen and rejoice when it is over.

Cheers!