You have struggled for years over finding enlightenment and worrying about how to be good. But goodness doesn’t need you to recognize it, anymore than enlightenment needs you to achieve it.
Most likely, you struggled far less in your everyday life before you knew anything about enlightenment. And now what? Why continue such an abusive relationship?
It is enough to be good, and you already know how to do that, even if you claim you do not.
Commune with nature and other human beings, enjoy the wonders of the world while you can, and leave the room cleaner than it was when you entered.
Just be good.
Be Good
{ 12 comments }
Indeed! Wish I never heard of that silly little “enlightenment” word. Life was better before I “knew”. Too bad you can’t just fuggedaboudit.
As always, Takuin… Great stuff!
Thanks, Mike.
Whether you can forget about it or not, you CAN just leave it alone. You can decide. And forget about those parrots that say there is no choice (You can easily forget about them).
I love learning and look forward to my long week end at Kripalu in June, but that said, hmm…I need to stop and restate what I was going to write.
Nothing is important. It really isn’t. I’m not talking about ignoring the love you have for the world or others and the good you can do, but I’ve learned (and relearned over and over) that in the end nothing matters but how you choose to act in the present.
Thanks, Amysue.
That importance you’ve mentioned, it is usually viewed through thought, through opinion and preference, and through time…which is really all the same. It is an importance based on our own continuity as an entity (and not something necessarily important for the continuity of the species).
It moves in many different directions, as far as the need to control or the need to gain is concerned. But these differences are superficial, as the person in the shadows always grasps at the world through its own limited viewpoint.
The present is all-time and non-time, all-space and non-space; a living not dependent upon the central view point of the personal. But the words, you know…can’t quite touch the thing…
A breathless breath, a touch-less embrace, a sightless sight…
In a way, life seemed simpler before I knew about enlightenment…but then again, at that time I don’t think I questioned things as much. I had beliefs about what “being good” meant, and I spent a lot of time trying to live up to others’ standards, to do what I was “supposed” to do as a good student/daughter/spiritual person, etc. Now I don’t know what I want anymore. I try to make peace with the unknown and move forward as best I can, but it is disorienting to feel my sense of personal drive falling away. One step at a time, I suppose, is all we can do…
Thanks, Sarah.
If your personal drive falls away, that is OK. The falling away may reveal something new; a drive untouched by self-centered desire, and free from what you hope to violently attain for yourself.
You will not be able to make peace with the unknown anymore than you you’ll be able to fear the unknown. It is beyond the touch of the one that tries, the one that fears.
One can only live the unknown…
Hi!!
It comes to the point where one chooses to be good in spite of everything else around one. The rest is immaterial. One chooses good because one is intolerant of everything else…not in an elitist goody-goody sense…it just bugs one that it is so easy to accept sloppy negativity…it’s like trying to get away from something that smells bad. One just walks off, one doesn’t sit thinking ‘now should i hang out just in case the smell changes’. It’s not really a choice. More of a reflex.
But at some point one has to choose. Perhaps more than once.
Hope u’re well
Thanks, Ju.
It is almost as if goodness grows from walking alone…
I can feel you. Nice.
_/|\_
Thanks, Rizal.
It’s good to see you again.
Bob Dylan said it so well some years ago; “Good and bad I define these terms, quite clear, no doubt some how. Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
These are concepts both learned and instinctual. For me it seems more “right” to allow good to work through me rather than do good. Hope that makes sense.
Thank you, Eric.
Yes, I understand what you are saying. And you’ve mentioned something important in that good is not ‘done‘ in the way we usually consider doing. Greater good, if that is the right way to say it, passes though us beyond our touch. It is beyond our doing.
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