THis spoke to me so much! As a white woman, coming to grips with my casual white supremacist upbringing, and having lived an intentionally multi-racial life, raising two bi-racial children, I often wonder if I am doing enough. If I am “good” enough? Your piece spoke to my Buddhist community's belief in Enlightened Society. We all have basic goodness (Buddha nature) or at least the ability to become Buddha-like and it is up to us to create this enlightened society, in every deed, every though, everything we do. Taking the focus off “me” turns my attention to us as a whole, as we are all connected. In that framework, there is no “me”, there is only us. We create what we pay attention to, what we nurture, what we turn our energy toward. Generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom. That’s what we can give to the world in order to create the society we want for all!
Thank you for this very thoughtful piece. It’s what I needed to read today!
Thank you, Lindsey, for your thoughtful reflection. As you ask about how this viewpoint works in an atheistic or agnostic frame, I think it works just fine. You might just change the language from reference to God and the divine to "glimmers of goodness and beauty" in others and in the world. This perspective, I agree, can provide a positive basis for the work one does in the world.
Just came back to this after a couple of weeks of wrestling with my own "am i good" crisis. (It was a small crisis, as crises go, but still.) I remembered having seen this post, remembered vaguely that "am I (or am I not) a good person" was not the right question. Re-reading your reflection is helping me to bring into focus what I've been processing: "that the goodness we seek exists inside us alongside those places where we are not very good, where we are broken or confused, where we perpetuate harm. It exists outside of us, too— in other people, in things seen and unseen, alongside the not very good, the broken and confusing, the harmful." Thank you.
THis spoke to me so much! As a white woman, coming to grips with my casual white supremacist upbringing, and having lived an intentionally multi-racial life, raising two bi-racial children, I often wonder if I am doing enough. If I am “good” enough? Your piece spoke to my Buddhist community's belief in Enlightened Society. We all have basic goodness (Buddha nature) or at least the ability to become Buddha-like and it is up to us to create this enlightened society, in every deed, every though, everything we do. Taking the focus off “me” turns my attention to us as a whole, as we are all connected. In that framework, there is no “me”, there is only us. We create what we pay attention to, what we nurture, what we turn our energy toward. Generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and wisdom. That’s what we can give to the world in order to create the society we want for all!
Thank you for this very thoughtful piece. It’s what I needed to read today!
Thanks, Mariana— glad something spoke to you! And love hearing the cross-religious resonance.
Thank you, Lindsey, for your thoughtful reflection. As you ask about how this viewpoint works in an atheistic or agnostic frame, I think it works just fine. You might just change the language from reference to God and the divine to "glimmers of goodness and beauty" in others and in the world. This perspective, I agree, can provide a positive basis for the work one does in the world.
Great suggestion.
Just came back to this after a couple of weeks of wrestling with my own "am i good" crisis. (It was a small crisis, as crises go, but still.) I remembered having seen this post, remembered vaguely that "am I (or am I not) a good person" was not the right question. Re-reading your reflection is helping me to bring into focus what I've been processing: "that the goodness we seek exists inside us alongside those places where we are not very good, where we are broken or confused, where we perpetuate harm. It exists outside of us, too— in other people, in things seen and unseen, alongside the not very good, the broken and confusing, the harmful." Thank you.