ethics/virtue/metta/etc.

I'm curious if/how/why/what others have considered important/not important in their practices in regards to how one interacts with others. This could fall in the categories of things like ethical behavior, good manners, emotional intelligence, charitable work, metta practice and so on.

For example, some Buddhists I know (fairly traditional Theravada teachers, western students of various levels) take seriously the 8 precepts (I think there are eight) and think of these as a part of their practice. Or, for example, the Carmelite sisters I hang out with have as part of their spiritual practice various charitable works, such as running a school for poor children. People not affiliated with a specific tradition might still do something like metta practice or pay attention to their own behaviors around things like greed, gluttony, rude speech, and so forth.

It occurs to me there is a factor in this that is relevant, which is that some people are raised to pay attention to such things (helping the old lady cross the street, speaking politely, giving to charity, volunteering, helping out a friend or stranger in need, etc.), and do them regardless of their spiritual practice (if they even have one). Other people are not raised with attention to such things, and may consider such things unnecessary or just not really think about it or even consider some such behaviors fake or cultural impositions that should be ignored. So everyone's coming from a different place and may have different goals and priorities.

I was pondering this because there have been times in my practice when deliberately cultivating virtue, doing prayer for others, etc has seemed more important than other things; and yet it also seems to be something that is easier to do when one has gotten a little less entangled in ones own head. Thoughts? Ponders?

In relation to the cultural background, it may also, like personality after awakening, be a personality thing? Just, for some people this kind of thing - or at least, thinking about it explicitly this way - is more important than others. For me, like other aspects of practice, it's changed over time - I saw it as important, but also as not necessarily related to insight as such, and saw morality as supportive 'content' rather than a central aspect of the (my) path to be dealt with in its own right - whereas recently I feel like I've really re-integrated the two again.

Maybe it's also that depending where you started, people's paths might need to be different in terms of what they let go of - e.g. my own tendency was to have a punitive, superstitious superego morality demanding that I be good, and that needed to be relaxed into a humanity, but also necessary was the discovery of the continuing importance of carrying out (to the best of my ability) a morality that WASN'T like that, but also wasn't seen as unconnected to the path - whereas someone else might go in the opposite direction, or another direction altogether...

Another thing for me was thinking about where I wanted to go and who might be a good teacher/role model in relation to morality - in the 12-Step fellowships they advise that, to find a sponsor, you look for someone who's got what you want, and I would now apply this to spiritual teachers in the realm of morality (obviously not someone who has the exact same ethical code as you, but in a general sense, someone whose ethical/moral behaviour you can respect).

Oh, in Theravada the usual lay precepts are five - no killing, stealing, false/malicious speech, sexual misconduct or intoxication - the eight are mostly taken on retreat, holy days, etc, and add no eating after noon, no using high or luxurious beds and chairs, no dancing/singing/entertainment/self-adornment - and no sexual misconduct becomes no sexual activity whatsoever. A bit more hardcore than the standard five

I when it comes to ethical behavior, I tend to think it's important to throw away all formulas and just really do it. Which basically means failing or coming up short all the time. But what else can you do?

It seems like I really got into metta practice when I started having bliss states arise. Part of it is puritanically motivated, feeling not worthy, but I just wanted to give it away to others. Then I realized that I deserved it too, so I imagined myself as a beacon, the more bliss I experienced, the more I could give it away.

These days, the bliss is largely gone, and I'm almost superstitious about pride. Anytime I feel it solidifying I give it away. Whoever needs to feel better about themselves can have it and I can take on their suffering for a while.

That's the way it's gone.

Thanks for the refresher on the precepts. My friend and I joke about the high beds one, because the center where he goes has bunk beds. We like to tease the young director about how high the beds are (though obviously that's not what the precept is about - it's meant to indicate luxury, not literal height).

I know in my own practice there's been a ranging attitude towards certain things. Just for example, most of my life it was a normal part of conversation to gently or harshly mock other people as a part of conversation. Like coming home from an outing and exclaiming over the idiocy of someone we saw, or how badly someone performed during their class presentation, or how so and so threw up in the hallway or whatever. It wasn't always done with disdain, but could just as often be an expression of discomfort - being aware of how embarrassing it would be to be that person, and then acting out the anxiety that produced by doing humorous scenarios with friends, imitating the person, exaggerating the situation, etc as a way to get laughs from each other and relieve the tension. Sometimes it was just plain old disdain - with no awareness of how that arises from fear. Or sometimes it was just that kind of talk like "Oh my God, can you believe what happened? Yeah, it was horrible! Imagine if..." - a sort of fear-driven gossip, with an overt intention of sympathy for the person in question, but really all about our own fear of being in that person's shoes.

I recall times in recent years where I became aware of that pattern, and now could see how it was really a fear reaction coming from my own visceral discomfort. Fear that that could be me, for instance. Or seeing something in others that I didn't feel comfortable with in myself, and lashing out at them in thought or words as a compensation. Seeing that, it was harder and harder to just indulge that behavior thoughtlessly, and being so much more aware of it I began to correct myself when it happened, paying attention to the tendency and how it arose. I still criticize other people sometimes, but I don't think I ever do it without being aware of doing it and being instantly aware of *why* I am doing it (my own fault, anxiety, fear, that triggers the reaction). It feels really unskillful, uncharitable to behave that way. Which then led me to wonder whether it wasn't beneficial to actually TEACH that as part of a wisdom practice, rather than just focusing on my experiences, my spiritual journey, my awakening, etc. I saw people who weren't "awake" in our sense of the word who were generous, kind, giving, thoughtful, helpful - their spiritual practices were focused on that AS the path. And I wondered if there wasn't something to that. On the other hand, that path probably attracts people who already value those things and want to cultivate that as their path. So it's not science.

shargrol wrote: ... I'm almost superstitious about pride. Anytime I feel it solidifying I give it away. Whoever needs to feel better about themselves can have it and I can take on their suffering for a while.

That's the way it's gone.

Yes to pride! I love the Christian concept of vainglory, where you feel proud of how virtuous you are or how well your spiritual practice is going. It's considered one of the more insidious sins, and very difficult to eradicate. It's one I've paid a lot of attention to at times.

Ona Kiser wrote: Thanks for the refresher on the precepts. My friend and I joke about the high beds one, because the center where he goes has bunk beds. We like to tease the young director about how high the beds are (though obviously that's not what the precept is about - it's meant to indicate luxury, not literal height).

Lol

Which then led me to wonder whether it wasn't beneficial to actually TEACH that as part of a wisdom practice, rather than just focusing on my experiences, my spiritual journey, my awakening, etc. I saw people who weren't "awake" in our sense of the word who were generous, kind, giving, thoughtful, helpful - their spiritual practices were focused on that AS the path. And I wondered if there wasn't something to that. On the other hand, that path probably attracts people who already value those things and want to cultivate that as their path. So it's not science.

I dunno... there are lots of people who are or claim awakening and/or are teachers, and also in the PD scene, who seem to me to have not very much interest in those things... though their teachings might be seen as Zen stick or crazy wisdom or whatever.

That might be a judgmental thing to say, but one of the things I noticed both about PD and about quite a few 'new generation' Buddhists was the idea that morality is some kind of dogmatic holdover from religion as 'opiate of the people' that has nothing to do with awakening. And that this sometimes seemed to be held as a badge of pride in terms of being understood as a sing that one was freethinking or rebellious, etc As my tone here probably indicates, I don't really hold to this view.

I do however wonder, given the choice between becoming a much more naturally 'moral' person or a much more awake person which would I choose, I imagine the latter... but it's probably a false duality.

every3rdthought wrote: ...one of the things I noticed both about PD and about quite a few 'new generation' Buddhists was the idea that morality is some kind of dogmatic holdover from religion as 'opiate of the people' that has nothing to do with awakening. And that this sometimes seemed to be held as a badge of pride in terms of being understood as a sing that one was freethinking or rebellious, etc As my tone here probably indicates, I don't really hold to this view.

I do however wonder, given the choice between becoming a much more naturally 'moral' person or a much more awake person which would I choose, I imagine the latter... but it's probably a false duality.

Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but I do wonder how much of that is a not uncommon youthful response where one joyfully throws out all the parental rules when one moves out of the parents' house... and often as not changes ones tune when one has kids of ones own. It's less true now, but even a few years ago the active population online was heavily very young.

It does seem to me that "moral behavior" and "awakening" are rather loosely woven together - not in a rigid or causal way, but in a more loosely correlated way - the more awake people are the more they generally tend to be aware of their own motivations, have more compassion for others, be less likely to be angry, impatient, nasty, etc. But there's the person's upbringing, culture, personality, etc to consider too - each person is starting from a different place and will probably migrate to practices that seem to fit with their intentions for how they want to be.

As I mentioned with the nuns and their charitable work - no one who thinks that is a stupid waste of time is going to join their order, so it is a self-filtering training. People who join them and train that way already have an interest in being more like that.

Thanks for co-pondering! I find it fun. Anyone else? I'm off to bed!

There are at least two edges to this subject-- for me, anyhow. To actively cultivate "virtue" is a good corrective to heedless self-centeredness, before or after awakening.

Yet there is also the danger of becoming an insufferable prig about how "good" one is being. (What Ona said about vainglory.) It may be just personal esthetics, for me, and not be worth anything to anyone else, but people self-consciously "being good" drives me around the bend. When behavior becomes a sort of generic smiliness... any sense of real interaction is lost. It's sort of the inverse of being reflexively punkish and snarly: it reduces the person on the receiving end to a cipher.


If awakening means anything to me, it means setting out along the razor's edge of authenticity.

I don't really favor it, but the Sila piece has been sneaking up on me and increasingly biting me on the backside the last 2 or 3 years, to the point where I'm starting to have no choice but to deal with it, and don't know where that comes from.

The sharpening of the economic class divide in the U.S. is a biggie for me. Whenever I buy groceries, people who appear to be educated young adults or middle-aged professionals working cash register. I usually shop early in the morning or late in the evening around work, and sometimes they tell me it's one of their 2 or 3 jobs. They might be standing for hours in the evening after their day job. Or they work weekends and rarely have a day off.

I work long hours and rarely have a day completely off either, but I can remote in on my laptop from home. And I get paid relatively quite well I bet. Now that my wife has started doing the same (for nearly the 1st time since our kids were born 2 dozen years ago), we suddenly have what seems to us like an above average family income.

The main difference so far is that I buy all this expensive organic food for the entire family -- fresh fruits and vegetables, wild caught salmon, free range organic chicken, organic avocados and greek yogurt. Stuff that's supposed to be really good for you.

And I sometimes feel like the person ringing up each item at the register is thinking "this guy's one weekly shopping is as big as my entire monthly food budget. I'd never be able to get all the stuff he gets."

It's hard to explain, and might be over the top, Christian guilt, superstitious, magical thinking, OCD, but I find myself feeling that I can sense immediate karmic repercussions to trying to rationalize this and ignore the interconnectivity/inequality issues here. This is part of my whole interest in addiction right now. It feels almost like an existential threat to acknowledge some sense of responsibility or need to respond to how I fit into this picture. How disproportionately much I consume. Especially globally. Tell me I'm crazy.

I in a discussion about this about a week ago, and someone raised the idea that it's been quite different in the distant past than it is now; that there was a time when people were expected to "do the right thing", to stand up for the weak, protect the good, uphold their family's good name, and now there's an attitude more akin to "I'm only human"

But tonight I was reading some poetry by Delmore Schwartz and this thread reminded me of one of them

The beautiful american word, Sure,
As I have come into the room, and touch
The lamp's button, and the light blooms with such
Certainty where the darkness loomed before,

As I care for what I do not know, and care
Knowing for little she might not have been,
And for how little she would be unseen,
The intercourse of lives miraculous and dear.

Where the light is and each thing clear,
Separate from all others, standing in its place,
I drink the time and touch whatever's near,

And hope for the day when the whole world has that face:
For what assures her presence every year?
In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace.

Kacchapa wrote: I don't really favor it, but the Sila piece has been sneaking up on me and increasingly biting me on the backside the last 2 or 3 years, to the point where I'm starting to have no choice but to deal with it, and don't know where that comes from.

The sharpening of the economic class divide in the U.S. is a biggie for me. Whenever I buy groceries, people who appear to be educated young adults or middle-aged professionals working cash register. I usually shop early in the morning or late in the evening around work, and sometimes they tell me it's one of their 2 or 3 jobs. They might be standing for hours in the evening after their day job. Or they work weekends and rarely have a day off.

I work long hours and rarely have a day completely off either, but I can remote in on my laptop from home. And I get paid relatively quite well I bet. Now that my wife has started doing the same (for nearly the 1st time since our kids were born 2 dozen years ago), we suddenly have what seems to us like an above average family income.

The main difference so far is that I buy all this expensive organic food for the entire family -- fresh fruits and vegetables, wild caught salmon, free range organic chicken, organic avocados and greek yogurt. Stuff that's supposed to be really good for you.

And I sometimes feel like the person ringing up each item at the register is thinking "this guy's one weekly shopping is as big as my entire monthly food budget. I'd never be able to get all the stuff he gets."

It's hard to explain, and might be over the top, Christian guilt, superstitious, magical thinking, OCD, but I find myself feeling that I can sense immediate karmic repercussions to trying to rationalize this and ignore the interconnectivity/inequality issues here. This is part of my whole interest in addiction right now. It feels almost like an existential threat to acknowledge some sense of responsibility or need to respond to how I fit into this picture. How disproportionately much I consume. Especially globally. Tell me I'm crazy.

I was talking to my mom about this sort of thing yesterday, actually. She was remembering when she was a kid in a small town, where her dad ran an auto repair shop. She said every once in a while, sort of seasonally, the "hobos" would come through. And for some reason they seemed to always stop by her dad's shop and ask for a handout, and her mom would go fix some sandwiches and glasses of milk and the hobos would sit on the porch and eat, and then they'd wave goodbye and be on their way. I had been telling her how surprised I was when the security guard at a bookstore I was in went on break and walked out the door and told the homeless man laying in front of the store, "come on, dude, time for lunch" and walked off with him to buy him lunch. I wondered if that kind of sympathy comes from being close enough to poverty oneself (ie having lived through the Great Depression, as my grandparents did; or growing up in really hard circumstances, like my dad did; or here where the vast majority are living quiet sparsely, or even if they are doing okay they grew up with very little)? I suppose it can work the other way, too, where you might grow up with nothing, somehow make a good living and move away from those circumstances, and then have such a fear of ever returning to it that you disdain any contact with your roots and get really protective of what you have?

(ETA - this might relate to what James said about the idea that in the past people had more of a sense of responsibility to the community and so on?)

The Samkhya philosophy -- which is incorporated into the Bhagavad Gita -- may be relevant here, as well as to the absolute/relative questions raised in the "Nonduality video w/T. Freke, G. Weber, L. Cairns" thread.

Samkhya draws a fundamental distinction between purusha and prakriti.

But having done that, Samkhya still sees it as important to differentiate between the qualities (Skt. gunas) of prakriti, paying attention to whether they are sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic.

Even though the main point is to realize that purusha and prakriti are separate, the Samkhya philosophy still holds that within the world of prakriti, sattvic is to be preferred to rajasic or tamasic.

Cautionary principles aside, you really can't go wrong with simple human kindness. Whatever fosters real connection is the way to go, in my book.

Chris Marti wrote: I think the morality and ethics of existence engages us as part and parcel of our meditation practice. It's not voluntary. It comes with learning what we are, how we work and how inter-related everything is. We're immersed in a web of interdependencies, trapped in it like flies in amber. Seeing that how can we not address the implications?

Well said. That's the "how" of it, interesting...

Thinking out loud:

And so pride is basically an attempt to be both independent ("beyond it all") and yet it is still motivated by wanting to feel superior ("above it all/them"), but the latter piece is the weakness -- basically still trapped in interdependence.

Whereas awakening has the beyond it all or without conflict with all of it?

And pride in our practice and results is fine, it is fuel, until it comes time to be seen through?

hmm...

i think just restating another way, the pride is an attempt to maintain a sense of self. the floor falls out, things are weird. and the innate response is to seek solidity, identity, some territory to defend. thought?

eta - covering fear, like the tough kid at school who is hiding his low self esteem?

Ona Kiser wrote: i think just restating another way, the pride is an attempt to maintain a sense of self.

There it is. Thanks.

I spent a good long while with that one banging on my head. Happy to share.