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The morals of a spiritual person

JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran

I was apping my cousin a few days ago, and he said to me, I miss people that are honest, upright, principled in my life. And I told him that is one of the reasons that I spend time on Buddhist forums, they are generally more principled.

Of course for Buddhists there are the Five Precepts and the Bodhisattva ideal that encourage us to be better people. In our consumer society the people who get rewarded are those who will do anything to increase shareholder profits, which is basically a stance of selling out your moral backbone to the highest bidder. This chase towards making money is ultimately depraved, it is morally corrupt.

So what about spiritual people who do not feel a connection with Buddhist morality? Christians perhaps? They also have a morality that is perhaps more complex, less pure. So you could certainly argue that most spiritual people you are likely to meet have morals that would keep them from following money or power exclusively.

personWalker

Comments

  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran

    most of society expects you to care more about marketability and success rather than developing wisdom and peace and helping those in need around you.

    As we grow or develop experience we learn to:

    1. Be our own peaceful and wise society, Not for sale, corruptibility or misguiding. IF we work at it.
    2. Recognise and be aware of our every imperfection, untruth and flaw.
    3. Use this knowing to inspire, redirect and giveaway our souls, mythologies and encrustations.

    For example:

    1. Failure is my greatest example of the human condition.
    2. Surround ourself with qualities and inspiring.
    3. Befriend the best in ourself.

    Repeat and rinse. #Jason said it well. As increasingly so many of us can...

    Lobster is a registered trademark. For sale to the highest demon. May contain additives. Do not feed to children. Suitable for Christians and other heretics.

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @Jason said:
    So the potential is there for people with little dust in their eyes who study and practice the fundamental principles of whatever religion they’re a part of, but sadly the combined power of wealthy religious institutions and the omnipresent weight of any socioeconomic system fueled by greed tend to engender religious people who fail to live by those religious principles and instead become ensnared by greed, hatred, delusion and the pursuit of worldly aims. It’s hard not to when most of society expects you to care more about marketability and success rather than developing wisdom and peace and helping those in need around you.

    That is what I am getting at, that in spiritual circles the weight of the socioeconomic system is not yet ever-present. In India there is an entire subculture of renunciates, people who give up home, hearth, and family to be closer to the divine. In South America there are still many tribes of native people who live independent of the socioeconomic monstrosity.

    In a way, the fact that in the West it’s all about how much money you have, you can buy anything you need given that you have enough money, means that the quality of being human is no longer respected as much. In a primitive or spiritual society, other qualities come before ‘wealth’… often one’s word, hospitality, friendliness are more important.

    In America and Europe you can live for decades without a stranger appealing to your hospitality. Everything happens through money and payment, it is like everyone in the world has become a trader, a merchant of their own time and abilities and morals.

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    edited January 26

    Enthalpy versus entropy for the spiritually inclined.

    As a Buddhist, I think anyone who tries to "Do only good, cease from evil and purify their Heart/Mind"...is a spiritual being, despite also being a jangly ball of Karmic momentum.
    Here, no person, religion, organization, tribe, race, culture, or group, has a lock on being any more particularly spiritual than anyone else.

    If your cousin wishes to meet more people who are honest, upright, and principled in life, you could try telling him that likes attract likes.
    If your cousin is finding a dearth of spiritual people around him, maybe he's only experiencing that same limited amount of spirituality that he is manifesting himself.

    The human condition is imbued with a personal sense of separation from others.
    A spiritual being is just someone trying to deconstruct the inertia of those conditioned behaviors. Even with the subtlest of attachments, those faint tugs on our heartstrings will continue to mock our morals of being spiritually accomplished at all.

    Looking for others to share in our practices is understandable, given our susceptibility to the human condition.....
    but
    a transactional practitioner might also question just when do those meager appeasements to our social attachments end up being the actual limitation to one's progression along the path towards suffering's cessation?

    Cheers all.

    lobsterpersonJeroenShoshin1
  • marcitkomarcitko Veteran
    edited January 26

    I live in a 80%+ Catholic country and Catholic family of origin. That said, historically, we've had several religions coexisting more-or-less peacefully here (Catholic + Eastern Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish).

    When I notice that a certain non-Catholic is exemplary in terms of conduct and morals, or at least clearly making a good effort, I sometimes half-jokingly and half-dead-serious tell my Catholic family: "He/she is a better Catholic than most Catholics!". Some of them immediately understand the "koan" and some don't.

    The main worker renovating my apartment is a Bosnian Muslim. A good person, working on himself, and implementing his religion practically in daily life and work in a positive way. A better Buddhist than most Buddhists! :)

    lobsterJeroenShoshin1
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