Why the virtues work like gangbusters, and how to harness them in real life

[longrhythm]

First to expel a misconception that I've fallen victim to in the past-

 

The virtues are NOT opposite the emotions paired with them.

 

As many of us have learned from Chia, the pairs are

 

Heart - Hate Cruelty and Hastiness, Joy Honor and Sincerity

 

Spleen - Worry, Openness

 

Lungs - Sadness and grief, Courage and Righteousness

 

Kidneys - Fear, Gentless

 

Liver - Anger, Kindness

 

Now as I said, for a long time I thought these were positive/negative pairs, complimentary opposites.

 

This assumption made sense, since the emotion is negative, and the virtue is positive. Beyond that, even with a slight disconnect in each pair, each one still has an intuitive logic to it.

 

I always figured since Taoism was founded on intuition, it makes sense that it's strung together by the very same.

 

And then the missing piece hit me in the face. The reason there is an intuitive logic to the pairs as they exist is because the Virtues ALLEVIATE the negative emotions paired with them.

 

So on this note, I find it helpful to actually create those complimentary opposite pairs we are looking for.

 

Heart - Hate Cruelty and Hastiness are opposed with Love Hope and Patience

 

Spleen - Worry is opposed with Self Assurance and Freedom

 

Lungs - Sadness and Grief are opposed with Happiness and Gratitude

 

Kidneys - Fear is opposed with Comfort

 

Liver - Anger is opposed with Peaceful

 

To me, this clarifies the virtues for what they are, and most importantly makes them actionable.

 

All of us here can appreciate the power of intention, and focusing on the virtues themselves does not inspire action, as the intention is to cultivate a virtue, rather than EXEMPLIFY IT.

 

What makes the virtues tangible in the real world, is to focus on the desired result that acting each one out should yield.

 

Here's a simple example:

 

If you want to be a great chef, do you daydream about the great chef you're going to be one day? Most successful chefs knew at some point early on that this was a path they would take, but they didn't get there by thinking about what qualities a great chef possesses.

 

What most successful chefs focused on was the response they got from the people who ate their food.

 

The qualities they develop along the way are simply an afterthought used to describe them as individuals. Their intentions were otherwise.

 

This is how it is with the virtues as well, they only appear as an afterthought, while the intent of the virtuous is actually to inspire the positive emotion that virtuous action yields.

 

I believe everything is done through relationships, and this is how I interpret the Tao. All the sitting practice in the world is meaningless unless it inspires you to treat others in a way that is representative of why we meditate in the first place.

 

What this leaves us with is a new pairing- the virtue with the positive emotion it inspires.

 

Heart - Joy, Honor, Sincerity paired with Love, Hope, and Patience

 

Spleen - Openness paired with Self Assurance and Freedom

 

Lungs - Courage and Righteousness paired with Hapiness and Gratitude

 

Kidneys - Gentleness paired with Comfort

 

Liver - Kindness paired with Peaceful

 

And to take this from "just another concept" and turn it into an actionable plan-

 

To be Joyful, Honored, and Sincere, strive to make others feel Love, Hope and Patience.

 

To be Open, strive to make others feel Self Assured, and Free to express themselves.

 

To be Courageous and Righteous, strive to make others feel Happy, and Grateful

 

To be Gentle, strive to make others feel Comfortable

 

To be Kind, strive to make others feel Peaceful

 

 

Meditating in this way seems to put my results in overdrive, as I see the fruits of my labor popping up in even the tiniest exchanges each day.

 

If you've read all this, try it out and let me know how it feels. Otherwise, what do you do to take your meditation out into the real world and make a difference?

 

If you don't think you do use meditation to make a difference think again. And if you still think you don't, then why do you meditate?

[therion]

I just enter full presence when I'm with someone. It takes care of everything. It seems that people get rid of/dissolve some of their karma after an interaction with me. Their lives become better. Before starting my practice I would feel extremely drained because of this karma transfer but now I'm completely unmoved and they transformed. It's like my presence sets up this energy field where people can dump their heaviest shit and it gets transformed into gold. It's really spontaneous and without effort so I can't claim or take credit for it.

[Marblehead]

Hi Longrhythm,

 

Nice post. Thanks.

 

When I read your words I saw you moving from dualistic thinking into wholeness thinking.

 

What I mean is that love and hate are not opposites, they are two different emotions. One a virtue, the other a vice. But they are still to be considered positive and negative. So we cultivate the positive without denying the existence of the negative.

 

In real life there are going to be things happen that we hate. That's the way life is. But we don't cultivate this hate. We experience it, acknowledge it, then let it pass. Yeah, sometimes we even have to take action because of what happened. But we should use the virtue that is the closest to its opposite in our actions whenever possible. In other word, we act with love as a base for our actions rather than using hate because then we would be cultivating hate.

 

But meditation is still important as it helps us to keep a clear and unbiased mind. This allow us to more easily cultivate virtue.

 

Peace & Love!

[betwixter]

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Edited September 12, 2010 by betwixter

[Mal]

And then the missing piece hit me in the face. The reason there is an intuitive logic to the pairs as they exist is because the Virtues ALLEVIATE the negative emotions paired with them.

 

<snip>

 

And to take this from "just another concept" and turn it into an actionable plan-

 

To be Joyful, Honored, and Sincere, strive to make others feel Love, Hope and Patience.

 

To be Open, strive to make others feel Self Assured, and Free to express themselves.

 

To be Courageous and Righteous, strive to make others feel Happy, and Grateful

 

To be Gentle, strive to make others feel Comfortable

 

To be Kind, strive to make others feel Peaceful

 

 

Thank you for sharing, I found that most helpful.

 

I guess I try to do something along the lines of therion. I just try to be there for the person I'm talking with, supportive of there ideas and feelings more so than my agenda

(well that's the aim anyhow)

[宁]

In the beginning, you need to 'feed' the inner gods daily.

After a while, they grow up and become active and helpful.

[Marblehead]

In the beginning, you need to 'feed' the inner gods daily.

After a while, they grow up and become active and helpful.

 

And after another while they don't need you anymore so you have time to live your own life and no longer need to concern yourself with them.

 

Peace & Love!

[宁]

And after another while they don't need you anymore so you have time to live your own life and no longer need to concern yourself with them.

 

Peace & Love!

 

The real 'you' is 'them'. Have you seen 'The 5th Element'?

[longrhythm]

But meditation is still important as it helps us to keep a clear and unbiased mind. This allow us to more easily cultivate virtue.

 

Peace & Love!

 

I agree meditation is important, and only recently I've begun to see it as a means to an end. My personal ideal would be to take what I learn in meditation and weave it so seamlessly into my waking life that I practice all day, like a self-sharpening knife.

 

If you don't mind my asking, what type of practice are you referring to? Do mean a therapeutic (counseling, healing...) type of practice?

 

 

Thank you for sharing, I found that most helpful.

 

I guess I try to do something along the lines of therion. I just try to be there for the person I'm talking with, supportive of there ideas and feelings more so than my agenda

(well that's the aim anyhow)

 

To Mal and Therion, I also would like to know more about where you're coming from. I've heard it said that complexity is a mask for poor understanding, and I certainly have used Taoist meditation to broaden my emotional palette, and develop my EQ. If there's a simpler and more effective road to the same result I'm all for it. Ironic that I'm asking you to complexify your already simple solutions, but meet a brotha halfway!

 

The real 'you' is 'them'. Have you seen 'The 5th Element'?

 

LOL I love that movie. Lelu big bada boom.

[Astral_Anima]

Longrhythm- I really like your post, it does make a good bit of sense, however I have to question it's practicality in ALL situations.

 

Striving to make other happy, peaceful, loved, self-assured, etc is a very noble pursuit, one which I share. With any action, however, it must be balanced by Wisdom, the GREATEST virtue of all (imo). Happiness has two forms (from what i've observed) the passing kind and the lasting kind. The lasting kind is one that comes from inside as the passing comes from the outside. It's like the old saying "give a hunger man a fish and he will have food for a night, teach a hungry man to fish and he will have food for a lifetime".

 

When the goal is to help others you must meditate on your actions and gauge what kind of responses you're getting and decide whether what you're doing is REALLY helping or not. Paying someone compliments may help their self esteem short term, but sharing a method of increasing self esteem (through self transformation or simply letting go) is what going to give them the real results.

 

Plus what happens when you tell someone a truth they don't want to hear? There will be a period of anger and sadness on their part, which may make the action of sharing that truth seem counterproductive, however, one must be able to look long term for lasting results.

 

In modern society, everyone is so hung up on immediate gratification that the pursuit of helping others often goes about in vain. All people seem to want is illusion and sensory stimulation to distract them from their painful realities, so those trying to please may simply give them what they ask for, noticing that it makes them happier short term. However this is a trap because they will become dependent on their illusions and stimulation until eventually they're forced to face the truth. Now you have to ask yourself...for someone in such a condition, what is the best means of helping them? DO you feed them what they desire? Do you try to get them to face reality? Do you simply smile and lead by example?

 

I don't have the answer to that question, unfortunately, but I do believe it is one worth considering for those seeking to help others. I know that simply feeding people what they think they want doesn't help. The service industry has been doing that for years and nobody seems to be any better off (the opposite seems true).

 

"Seek first Wisdom and all other things will reveal themselves to you"

 

-Astral

[longrhythm]

Longrhythm- I really like your post, it does make a good bit of sense, however I have to question it's practicality in ALL situations.

 

Striving to make other happy, peaceful, loved, self-assured, etc is a very noble pursuit, one which I share. With any action, however, it must be balanced by Wisdom, the GREATEST virtue of all (imo). Happiness has two forms (from what i've observed) the passing kind and the lasting kind. The lasting kind is one that comes from inside as the passing comes from the outside. It's like the old saying "give a hunger man a fish and he will have food for a night, teach a hungry man to fish and he will have food for a lifetime".

 

When the goal is to help others you must meditate on your actions and gauge what kind of responses you're getting and decide whether what you're doing is REALLY helping or not. Paying someone compliments may help their self esteem short term, but sharing a method of increasing self esteem (through self transformation or simply letting go) is what going to give them the real results.

 

Plus what happens when you tell someone a truth they don't want to hear? There will be a period of anger and sadness on their part, which may make the action of sharing that truth seem counterproductive, however, one must be able to look long term for lasting results.

 

In modern society, everyone is so hung up on immediate gratification that the pursuit of helping others often goes about in vain. All people seem to want is illusion and sensory stimulation to distract them from their painful realities, so those trying to please may simply give them what they ask for, noticing that it makes them happier short term. However this is a trap because they will become dependent on their illusions and stimulation until eventually they're forced to face the truth. Now you have to ask yourself...for someone in such a condition, what is the best means of helping them? DO you feed them what they desire? Do you try to get them to face reality? Do you simply smile and lead by example?

 

I don't have the answer to that question, unfortunately, but I do believe it is one worth considering for those seeking to help others. I know that simply feeding people what they think they want doesn't help. The service industry has been doing that for years and nobody seems to be any better off (the opposite seems true).

 

"Seek first Wisdom and all other things will reveal themselves to you"

 

-Astral

 

Thanks for this Astral you got me thinking.

 

First as far as the types of happiness, my experience has shown that it's not even possible to take happiness from the outside, the closest you can get is to "act as if". The only way I could start focusing on outside factors was to first build the happiness that comes from within through my practice to a point where it became reliable.

 

In fact I'd go so far as to say that focusing on outside sources of emotional stimulation is actually dangerous until that lasting source from within is well established, since otherwise outside factors which are out of our control can send us spiraling.

 

And yes, the service industry has made alot of people obese, but I also try to be humble regarding other peoples direction. While I wouldn't necessarily say a cheap compliment is worth anything, (and most people can tell when it's cheap), I also am wary of any truth someone might not want to hear, as it begs the question, who am I to bestow "truth" upon anyone? There's some talk in this thread on spiritual pride, which I have experienced myself, and apparently many others. I personally think it's a good thing, cause only having experienced it myself could I learn to watch for it when I start to exhibit it.

 

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/15228-the-experts-say-you-cant-take-it-with-you/

 

Personally I've fallen in a trap of false humility on many occassions, I wonder if I'm alone. There's an irony to it, I spent so many years criticizing others for their lack of humility, that I couldn't see the arrogance implicit in my own actions!