Feeling like you are a “good person”
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I’ve always felt that I was a pretty good person, that I did things for the right reasons. Playing Dungeons and Dragons in my youth was a major formative factor, since the game gives you the opportunity to be a hero, as was reading a lot of fantasy and science fiction, which was surrounded by heroic role models. You could say my youth instilled in me a heroic ideal.
But lately I have been questioning that. I was doing a contemplation which involved imagining looking at myself from the outside, following myself for a few days, and seeing what I did that was worthy of comment. That led to reviewing my activities over a few years. My conclusion was that I’m actually not much different from the norm, if I compare myself to others.
The thing is, the things that I associate with goodness at this stage in my life are not very similar to the heroic ideals of my childhood. Now I would say it is love, caring, service to a certain extent. Not heroic battle or adventure, those are things to play with, toys. The real stuff of life is more ordinary, more down to earth. I value freedom, a knowing of the self, truth.
Many of my major life decisions have come from feeling whether it is a “good” thing to do, you could say I was addicted to goodness. It made me feel pleasant to do good things. I think a lot of people have that instinct. It comes from wanting to be loveable as a child, I think. But what good has meant in adult life has shifted, from what people used to tell me, to things that come from within.
What has being good meant to you?
Comments
I think I share that attachment strongly, and maybe as Buddhists we as a group do too, more than other groups.
On one hand, it is good to do good - it leads to less suffering for self and others. On the other, it is difficult to know what is truly good. It is also not ideal to have a self-image of one who is "good".
A landmine, however, would be to let go of the "I am good" identity, and adopt a "I am bad" identity. The apex of the triangle should be above, beyond both, not in the opposite.
This quote by Rumi comes to mind (not that I understand it):
"Somewhere beyond right and wrong, there is a garden. I will meet you there."
That is beautiful @marcitko, I had not come across it before. Thank you.
The idea of goodness is something which you at a very early age are taught by your parents to guide you. Do this, don’t do that, this is good, that is not, from toilet training onwards. Later on it is co-opted by teachers, journalists, marketers, managers… it was only when I spent time in solitude that I started to find out what I myself truly valued.
But I think “goodness” is often decent and not problematic, unless it is taken to extremes (and Dungeons and Dragons is full of archetypes of extreme goodness, it’s easy to become seduced into that). It is best to be sensitive to when the right time is to let it go, and go to find a way of wisdom.
If I think of wise people, it is not those people who go crusading or talk at length about the wrongdoing in the world. It is the one who sits in meditation, the philosopher who discusses with friends and pupils, the one who travels visiting the master of a monastery.
Going beyond right and wrong, beyond good and evil, seems a key part of gaining wisdom, no?
I used to dress up in outrageous outfits with spiked hair and piercings and hold doors open for people at the mall in my youth. It made me feel good and helped convey a message I felt important, that we aren't always what we appear to be. That's sort of what good meant to me. Now good to me means having a conversation with someone and they walk away after feeling lighter than before.
In Buddhism the idea of conceit is a bit different than our definition. Generally people think of it as thinking you're better than others. The Buddhist notion is about comparing yourself to other at all, so thinking you're better than, worse than or the same as others.
There is a certain danger in thinking of yourself as a good person in that it automatically sets up a dichotomy of the others which aren't good. And a lot of what is considered good is conditional on time, circumstance and culture, its a sort of trend.
I tend to work on myself, let the internalized aspects of the path speak naturally, rather than trying to fit some outside accepted mold. Let others worry about whether I make the "good" grade.
The Audio Dharma teacher Diana Clark just gave a talk on the topic of Buddhist conceit.
https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/18932
Becoming attached to feeling like you are a good person, is one of suffering's causes.
And....
Becoming attached to states that society supports as something positive, is considered to be a compounded delusion for how seldom the resulting suffering gets traced back to its true cause.
For me, goodness was predicated on being certain things: environmentally aware and pro-active, against violence and in favour of peace, loving and caring, and a few others. It never had anything to do with comparison to others. Nevertheless it is an attachment to an external standard.
I think I agree with @how, it is a source of suffering, one’s own and others because it is a source of division. By being ‘good’ you automatically classify much of the world as ‘bad’ because they don’t do the same things as you.
One man's meat is another man's poison
I think the terms good and bad are relative ..Doing a good deed for one sentient being may be causing harm to another...
Do no harm or try to do the least harm possible...
Also having the the right 'intent' when performing an action...
I guess in a sense good can be seen as being 'skilful'...
There is a difference between feeling like a “good person” and doing “good deeds”. It is certainly culturally determined, and there is a difference between children’s culture and adult’s culture.
Doing no harm can also be done by doing as little as possible. The Taoist story of the farmer and his “perhaps” is also very relevant, good or beneficial things are often not so easy to discern.
For example in IJmuiden in the Netherlands, where my mother grew up, they built a large steel works, which was intended to help make the country independent in the manufacture of large steel objects. It did that and supplied work for a lot of people, but they are now discovering that the emissions from the works have negatively impacted the lifespans of people living in the area.
So in a way I can sympathise with the wise for being cautious in taking action.
I think that is what I was trying to say. Not that one necessarily sets themselves up in their mind as a righteous crusader, smiting the evil doers. Its more subtle than that.
There's the story cast about in spiritual and self help circles that illustrates this point as well.
I don't think you were saying this, its just when I hear someone talking about the relativity of good and bad I worry about falling into some sort of relativistic moral nihilism.
There is the old absolutist moral stance, which is still going strong in many areas of the world today, that says we're right and good and anyone else is wrong and bad.
In reaction to that people have seen the ways that isn't true and that things aren't so absolute. In some extremes, I'd say its been taken too far. For example, "some cultures allow women full participation in society and some practice female genital mutilation, who are we to decide who is right, maybe that is right for them?"
I think the wise stance is one of pluralism rather than absolutism or relativism. That there are many ways of promoting flourishing in the world, but some ways are harmful. That "good" ways of being usually have some level of trade offs in them, that the helpful aspects of one way may have downsides that other ways of being being don't have and vis versa. Like in @Jeroen 's example, one place may have avoided building the steel plant and now don't suffer the negative effects, but they also never experienced the benefits that the place that did build it had.
Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so...
-Bill Shakespeare-
I think in some cases one must curtail relativism, namely when it concerns doing damage to other people. But in a lot of cases people are quite happy adjusting to different circumstances, and one man’s good is another man’s evil indeed. I think tolerance is the important take-away in a lot of these cases, so that people can sit and eat together… if that makes sense.
“The perfect man is born out of the value system that we have created. The value system is patterned after the behavior of the great teachers of mankind who have done more harm than good. But every human being is unique.”
— U.G. Krishnamurti
People like Moses and Jesus Christ have cast a long shadow, especially over the Western world. But I think it is the influence of the priest castes who have done the most damage in interpreting the words of ancient teachers.
Nothing.
It is a question of being effective AND surprisingly we are at our most helpful or helped the most by the very rejection of unkindness and negative behaviour.
This is where an 'advanced' teaching like Chod comes in ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chöd
A friend’s Ayahuasca story revolved around being shown life evolving in swamps on distant planets, stars and galaxies rising, evolving and dissipating. He was being told that his own concerns were petty and self-indulgent, that Life carries on. And like that, we impose a lot of burdens and worries on ourselves.
Goodness can be like that, that from an early age you feel the need to be good and helpful because you have imposed it upon yourself. It is better to feel what naturally comes from within, to allow yourself to feel negative as well as positive, whatever comes.
Trying not to buy into the political BS spouted by people with an ultimate agenda, to the detriment of many others.
Also trying to see the suffering of all people, regardless of what's being said about them. It's a confronting path to take and often involves challenging and discarding one's notions, sometimes once a day.