Ethics - binding or liberating?

[Aetherous]

if your morality says something like "I must always try to do what I believe will cause the least suffering

 

....", you'll probably be OK.

 

I agree.

[thelerner]

Be a good and moral person simply because you know it is right.

I try to be a good and moral cause I don't want to have to remember a whole bunch of stuff.  In a world where you can't be sure of outcomes you may as well set your default setting to good.  I.e. when choosing between a selfish act and selfless one, you don't really know how it'll end up, so go good.  It tends to make a stronger character and in a small way, better world.

 

Lies get complicated.  Get in the habit of lying to others and you'll undoubtedly end up lying to your self.  To a large extent we create our life situation.  Be honest, help others, because thats the kind of world you want to live in. 

Edited June 26, 2015 by thelerner

[C T]

Ethical conduct and inner freedom are interchangeably and inextricably linked. 

 

Sometimes ethics lead to inner freedom and other times, having a glimpse of the unimpeded,unconfined, spacious awareness of inner freedom inspires ethical equilibrium on all levels of body, speech and mind. This is middle way harmony. 

[vonkrankenhaus]

Morality is inseperable from immorality.

 

Ethics and morals are relative, and invented by human beings to suit their own purposes.

 

It is dualistic thinking that values morality and shuns immorality.

 

Taoist thinking reconciles such dualities and sees them as two complimentary/antagonistic aspects of the same thing.

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[gendao]

Lol at all the rational-lies-ing in here...

I've been looking for summer work, and just found the job of my dreams, which pays twice as much as I thought I could get. But a requirement for the job was having a year of experience in the past 3 years...when I personally had experience prior to that but not during that time. So the person hiring just said to ask a friend to say that I worked for them, and get the job.

You probably could have just talked your way into the job without lying - as they might have been a little flexible on 1 req if you were otherwise impressive enough.

 

On a deeper level, you may need to remove a belief that material success requires lying.  As if honesty and "getting ahead" in a career are mutually-exclusive - and you must thus choose one or the other..

[juliank]

Transcending Moral and Ethical Standards To Achieve a Limitless Divine Action

 

The human mentality, by its nature, tends to separate things into hard and fast divisions. It is no different in the realm of moral rules or ethical standards. The mind then wants to apply these rules universally and in a rigid manner with the concern that if we once let down our strict code, we will quickly slide into depravity, lawlessness and vice. We see this pattern repeated all around the world where the law is “black and white” or the doctrine of the religion or moral philosophy are “absolute”. It is clearly true that ethical and moral codes provide a real benefit in the culturing of the consciousness of humanity, and they serve a serious and positive purpose. It is also, however, quite true that any strictly construed rule or law that has no room for adaptation to new situations and circumstances, or that does not apply a deeper sense and understanding, at some point becomes an obstacle to further growth and development. It is just this type of conflict of moral codes and their application to new circumstances in life that bring about the moral dilemma, the conflict of duties, such as Arjuna was faced with in the Bhagavad Gita.

 

Sri Aurobindo provides a solution that accounts both for the temporary necessity of such rules and the need for growth and change: “But even on the human level, if we have light enough and flexibility enough to recognise that a standard of conduct may be temporary and yet necessary for its time and to observe it faithfully until it can be replaced by a better, then we suffer no such loss, but lose only the fanaticism of an imperfect and intolerant virtue. In its place we gain openness and a power of continual moral progression, charity, the capacity to enter into an understanding sympathy with all this world of struggling and stumbling creatures and by that charity a better right and a greater strength to help it upon its way.”

As we evolve towards the wider, higher and more power consciousness of the Divine standpoint, we find that the rules that govern the mental and vital life of humanity are too limited and too rigid and must be replaced by something that is more flexible, and which embodies the Divine consciousness more perfectly than mental rule-making: “But the divine manifestation cannot be bound by our little rules and fragile sanctities; for the consciousness behind it is too vast for these things. Once we have grasped this fact, disconcerting enough to the absolutism of our reason, we shall better be able to put in their right place in regard to each other the successive standards that govern the different stages in the growth of the individual and the collective march of mankind.”

 

As Sri Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita to “abandon all Dharmas”, the seeker eventually must be prepared to give up the mental scaffolding that has supported him during his advance through the stages of human growth and evolution in order to truly carry out the divine sacrifice and act according to the higher Will without limitations.

[liminal_luke]

Maybe some people could of lied to get that job without any negative consequences for themselves or others. You, Aetherous, aren´t one of those people.  If you hadn´t acted in accordance with your value of honesty I do not think it would of set right with you.  

 

Everything is connected.  We can´t put spiritual development in one box, integrity in another, pretend they have nothing to do with each other.  When people really know that, and are committed to spiritual development, they make unconventionally moral decisions because...what other choice is there?

 

Liminal 

Edited June 27, 2015 by liminal_luke

[dawei]

"As Kierkegaard was at pains to stress, persons in the grip of a particular outlook were only too apt to deceive themselves into supporting that no other options lay open, tending to interpret whatever was presented to them in a fashion that conformed to its requirements."

 

- Kierkegaard, Patrick Gariner 

[idiot_stimpy]

Ethics are a good guide. Following the Golden Rule for example. 

[vonkrankenhaus]

People have problems with ethics, morals, and laws because these are basically just mechanisms designed to provide impetus and justification for their control, by whomever is maintaining and enforcing these.

 

People ignore these to whatever degree they can overcome fear or see an opportunity to profit.

 

Rather, people tend to rely on their own Judgement - their ability to judge and discern things and events.

 

Judgement can be simplified into things like "Yes or No" "Up and Down" - this is all YinYang thinking, at root.

 

So Judgement is related to dualism, but monism is what makes it intelligent - the ability to resolve dualities and antagonisms and see what they are faces of.

 

And ultimately, to be able to discern the Unity from which all relative phenomena are arising, and which they are returning to.

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Orion]

I don't know how else to word this, so I'll just say that ethics which arise from Source truths come as a natural evolution along the path. They are self-evident and require no instruction, they are just a reflection of what some might call the Buddha Nature, the true nature which lies beneath egoic endeavors.

 

Structural ethics, i.e. those that society and religion provide, can be guidelines, but they are not ultimate truths. They can even be a bit narcisstic with power-playing gravitas. I have found that a lot of the ethics I was taught growing up have come into conflict with developed spiritual truths, the latter of which have won over.

 

If one is operating from the Truth, then the "right thing" arises naturally, and does not stem from righteousness... which probably explains why a lot of enlightened people end up being killed by the State. They're just emptiness in action.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Orion

[idiot_stimpy]

What a perfect post Orion, thank you for sharing. Answers and completes the thread with this response.

[CloudHands]

That's no real questions. You act in function of what you need and who you are.

If you really needed that job you'd have done what you had to.

[Grok]

I don't know how else to word this, so I'll just say that ethics which arise from Source truths come as a natural evolution along the path. They are self-evident and require no instruction, they are just a reflection of what some might call the Buddha Nature, the true nature which lies beneath egoic endeavors.

 

Structural ethics, i.e. those that society and religion provide, can be guidelines, but they are not ultimate truths. They can even be a bit narcisstic with power-playing gravitas. I have found that a lot of the ethics I was taught growing up have come into conflict with developed spiritual truths, the latter of which have won over.

 

If one is operating from the Truth, then the "right thing" arises naturally, and does not stem from righteousness... which probably explains why a lot of enlightened people end up being killed by the State. They're just emptiness in action.

 

Yes   .  

 

I would add I think "ethics" are useful constructs in moving forward in said evolution. As long as you are willing to constantly question, change, and expand your understanding. As you said it is a path, as you move perspective changes, and so must your "constructs". 

 

In sum, constructs are useful as "thought-props", truths are what they are built around.

 

-grok

[Aetherous]

If you really needed that job you'd have done what you had to.

 

Absolutely...life is rarely black and white with ethics, but requires weighing out what's better. If I had kids needing dinner and was down to my bottom dollar, I'd have knowingly lied in a heartbeat. Luckily in this situation it was black and white.

[Aetherous]

ethics which arise from Source truths come as a natural evolution along the path. They are self-evident and require no instruction, they are just a reflection of what some might call the Buddha Nature, the true nature which lies beneath egoic endeavors.

 

My view: the cultivation of ethics coincides with the expression of the Buddha nature - whether ethics are blossoming naturally in the consciousness due to cultivation methods, or even grace...or through structured ideas of how to act, or basically sets of rules.

 

It has nothing to do with ethics if it's entirely contrived and purposeless, which is what most people here mistake for "structured ethics". There's a vast difference between ideas coming from reason/feeling/experience/wisdom, and ideas coming from meaningless abstraction.

 

Nothing wrong with external rules on the spiritual path...but people don't like discipline.

[thelerner]

As one matures, as lessons are internalized, one drops artifice, picking and choosing.   Ones natural way becomes the way of harmony.  Til we get there, and I'm a long way off, what I call ethics is setting up some rules of conduct for myself and listening to dharma lessons from those who are certainly wiser then myself. 

[wilfred]

the paradox here is they are both binding and liberating. things don't open up unless you play by the rules and when it comes to this energy stuff, there are indeed rules. we can't free ourselves while pretending we live in our own little universe

 

but i imagine the experience of being 'bound' is something that totally breaks down as one aligns themselves more and more with the natural order, transcends the lower mind. it becomes more of an effortless flow, all that's needed is a strong motivation to keep ones virtue and things open up very quickly indeed.

[Aetherous]

So I ended up getting a job somewhere else that fits my schedule perfectly and seems to have a cool boss.

"So, wait...you're telling me that to get this job I don't even have to lie?"
"Nope, you don't have to lie. Are you still interested?"
"I'll take it!"
(we didn't actually have that conversation)

 

Not that my situation was the purpose of this thread, which is about ethics on the spiritual path.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Aetherous

[Bud Jetsun]

 

Nothing wrong with external rules on the spiritual path...but people don't like discipline.

 

 

Unless one seeks liberation rather than using spiritual practices as distraction to pass the time.

 

 While choosing to cling to the comfort of delusions, including all belief and human constructs including the imaginary existence of rules, one is only making gestures of development with no path forward. 

 

It is not the easy path to use ones own being to choose what is the most compassionate action at each moment of now.  It requires much additional energy well beyond the efforts of leaning on a rule-delusion like a crutch.   It requires being in the now of the situation as opposed to taking the lowest effort path of deferring living your life experiences to some blanket inherently corrupt pre-conceived delusion of an overriding rule. 

 

Rules are the foundation of atrocity, and at best the deprivation of the purpose of human life on earth. 

 

With unlimited Love,

-Bud

[thelerner]

When entering someones home,school, dojo, zendo, place of learning/worship- you do well to respect and play by there rules.  You don't need to make them permanent, but its important if you want to learn from them or simply live around them.  And if they're psychopaths of cannibals, you probably either shouldn't go there in the first place and/or acting along is not a bad survival strategy. 

Edited July 2, 2015 by thelerner

[Bud Jetsun]

When entering someones home,school, dojo, zendo, place of learning/worship- you do well to respect and play by there rules.  You don't need to make them permanent, but its important if you want to learn from them or simply live around them.

 

 

Clinging to the lowest effort most comfortable path of waiving/deferring responsibility of choice of ones own actions creates a shackle to ensure impossibility of liberation. 

 

One will note the examples set by those who achieved liberation don't involve clinging to construct delusions.  

 

No shortage of advise shared from those who achieved self-distraction and self-delusion preaching the virtues of making policy choices in advance of experiencing each individual unique application as they arise in the Now. 

 

Following rules is certainly the lowest effort path with the initial appearance of the lowest risk.  The most hazardous pitfalls often have the most attractive outward appearance. 

 

With unlimited Love,

-Bud

Edited July 2, 2015 by Bud Jetsun

[Aetherous]

Unless one seeks liberation rather than using spiritual practices as distraction to pass the time.

 

 While choosing to cling to the comfort of delusions, including all belief and human constructs including the imaginary existence of rules, one is only making gestures of development with no path forward. 

 

It is not the easy path to use ones own being to choose what is the most compassionate action at each moment of now.  It requires much additional energy well beyond the efforts of leaning on a rule-delusion like a crutch.   It requires being in the now of the situation as opposed to taking the lowest effort path of deferring living your life experiences to some blanket inherently corrupt pre-conceived delusion of an overriding rule. 

 

Rules are the foundation of atrocity, and at best the deprivation of the purpose of human life on earth. 

 

With unlimited Love,

-Bud

 

Absolutely disagree...what more needs to be said?

[thelerner]

Clinging to the lowest effort most comfortable path of waiving/deferring responsibility of choice of ones own actions creates a shackle to ensure impossibility of liberation. 

 

One will note the examples set by those who achieved liberation don't involve clinging to construct delusions.  

 

No shortage of advise shared from those who achieved self-distraction and self-delusion preaching the virtues of making policy choices in advance of experiencing each individual unique application as they arise in the Now. 

 

Following rules is certainly the lowest effort path with the initial appearance of the lowest risk.  The most hazardous pitfalls often have the most attractive outward appearance. 

 

With unlimited Love,

-Bud

Hmm, is the 'unlimited Love' sarcasm or passive aggressiveness?   Actually I don't care but if you were somehow serious, you need to work on your whole 'love' concept cause I'm not feelin it.  Perhaps some xx's and oo's would help.  

 

My message was when you're in someone else's house, act with respect.  If that's too repressive, then don't enter.  Its a simple rule, I suppose in extreme cases it breaks down thus exceptions, but in general, it gets down to the Golden Rule stuff.  

 

If we're secure enough we don't have to show what special individuals we are every minute.  In truth there are times it takes a conscious shrinking of ones ego.  But its allowed me to be friends with liberals, conservatives, bikers, businessmen, children and elders.   To learn from them and enjoy there company.

 

 Most of the time being respectful or kind costs nothing.  Its the lubrication of civilization.  I don't think I understood that as well when I was younger and my head was full of abstract philosophies, but the older I've gotten the higher and higher virtue I see in simple kindness and respect. 

Edited July 4, 2015 by thelerner