Dear Dave,
I have found it difficult to figure out a good approach to outlining my spiritual practice, because it feels like explaining my life. I have an urge to tell stories about how I came upon my beliefs, but I think that would be alittle too long. I have had to resist the urge to tell more of the history of my development. To remain succinct, here is a simplified version of the principle behind my spiritual practice:
- We all change over time. We change in demeanor, behavior, passions, interests, and what communities we are a part of. To be human is to be dynamic, thinking of ourselves or others as static limits our capacity and deprives us all of our humanity.
- Willful action shapes how we change. You can become the person you want to be through practice.
- You have the power to decide how to act, behave and respond to any given situation.
- Every moment is a chance to shape how we change and therefore who we are.
- Living by broad, well-thought-out tenets facilitates positive personal change.
- Learn from your mistakes. Reflect on them at length, for days or months if necessary, to figure out what happened and how to change yourself to be more in line with who you want to be.
- Reflect on your activities and behaviors and how they impact the world around you. Try to change your behavior so it changes the people and communities how you want them to change.
- The whole world changes over time. Our collective willful action shapes how it changes. Even small scale actions change other people’s lives, and you can never know the full positive impact of a good deed. Likewise, you can never know the full negative impact of a bad deed.
The practice of this principle is the difficult part. I have used my conscience to good effect in this, when I have the impulse to do something, I will usually check it against my conscience and a myriad of tenets that I try to live by. Then I act the way that seems to conform to those tenets, sometimes having to force myself to do it. The most trying actions where I have to hunker down and really compel myself to do are often the most rewarding. Self-control and a willingness to forgo other emotions and desires in favor of conforming to my practice has been essential in seeing my ability to shape myself become reality. Likewise, awareness of what I am doing and keeping my practice always in the back of my mind is essential.
Perhaps my greatest experiment in my spiritual practice has been with the Golden Rule. I started trying to live by the Golden Rule when I was 15. And it, more than any other tenet, has pushed me to the limit of being the person I want to be. It has forced me to do some difficult and crazy things. When I say experiments, I indeed mean it that way. Looking at the outcomes when I fail to follow the Golden Rule versus when I keep to it has given me the utmost faith it this tenet’s ability to positively shape myself and my world. These experiments helped me be able to figure out the core tenet of my life and what I believe to be the answer to the eternal question “what is the meaning of life.”
“People” are my purpose. That one word encompasses a wide variety of issues, but in short, it means a devotion to other people, helping them, protecting them, and putting others before myself. Here are the tenets I feel flow from this purpose:
- Generosity is a tenet that has produced more happiness in my life than I can even conceive of. I now even get great joy from the search for people to receive. This includes being generous of myself and of my time, not just the property that happens to be in my possession.
- Anti-materialism. This helps alot with following generosity, but it basically means not being attached to possessions and being willing to part with them at any moment. I have even started trying to re-interpret theft as surprise, unintentional giving to the thief. Focusing on objects prevents us from seeing the humanity in each other.
- Forgiveness of everything as soon as it happens. This not only helps the other person heal but is of huge value in maintaining strong social bonds and one’s own positive outlook.
- Being stable. I think this is the Buddhist part of my practice. I try to remain calm and unmoved by events and maintain an emotional baseline of happiness. I consciously let go of frustration and anger, which forgiveness is key in. Being stable helps the people around me immensely, I have found.
- Awareness of others and what is probably going on in their minds. Trying to determine how they feel and what they think based on what I have observed.
- Activism. Personal interactions go a long way in changing the world, and bringing that to a larger arena as part of a group is very powerful.
- Investing myself in the projects and activities I do and in the people around me.
- Silence. Being careful with words and listening to other people more than talking. This shows to other people that you value what they think, as well as makes them value your words more.
- Non-violence in word and thought as well as in physical presence.
- Truth. Not lying beyond white lies.
- Humanization. When I think of other people, no matter who they are or what they have done, I try to humanize them in my mind, not letting myself write them off as bad people. Seeing myself in other people is another way of saying this.
- Faith that the universe is dominated by good, and reminding myself of this.
- Reflecting on everything. On my behavior, others behavior, consequences of any given action, tenets etc. This includes the development of self-knowledge and an understanding of oneself.
- Being non-judgmental. Being judgmental gets in the way of seeing other people as full human beings, and it burdens you with unpleasant feelings and emotions. Forgiveness helps alot with maintaining a non-judgmental outlook. Besides, I feel like reality deals out harsh judgements and punishments to people as it is, I see no reason to add to that misery.
There are probably lots of other tenets, but those are most of the important ones that I could think of off the top of my head. I would say as far as the practice goes, it is a continuous process. I am always practicing, trying to make every action deliberate and in-line with who I want to be. That is really all it boils down to... if you want to become someone else, practice being that person in your daily life and one day you will see yourself a changed person. I am also always re-examining the principle and tenets behind my spiritual practice, looking for faults or situations that contradict it. This has helped me maintain confidence in it and improving it when there is an issue.
I hope that short summary was what you were looking for.
peace,
Will
10 comments:
i would like to respond to your spiritual practice, which i think makes you a damn good moral agent, who is self-legislating and follows categorical imperatives.
but this way of living seems hard to put in practice every day, especially for lawyers and students of law. and so, it seems hard to persuade my peers to adopt your unique practice.
1. do a l l of us change over time? for instance, in law school students are virtually cudgeled into thinking like lawyers. They develop a strictly rational way of perceiving the world and do not ever lapse into the "old way" of thinking throughout the rest of their lives.
would such a person be freely choosing to "think like a lawyer" even when there are times when they are not consciously doing so? would such a person be freely adopting the lawyer identity even though the identity has become 'automatic?'
more generally, if Person A knowingly adopts identity X at Time 1. Does Person A freely choose identity X at T2...TN? what does it mean to adopt an identity 'automatically?' can one make sense of this?
This seems like a not-so-serious, but worthy challenge to part of your practice, and it would only serve to strengthen your practice by addressing it.
Which leads to your second point: "2. willful action, well-practiced, shapes who we are."
doesn't this mean that someone who adopts the lawyer-identity and does not willfully resist it is stuck with that identity for life?
if so, then are we not static beings after having freely chosen some identity? are we free until we've chosen, and once we've chosen, not free?
I'm trying to reconcile 1 & 2, and maybe there is value in addressing this ambiguity in your practice.
"3. You have the power to decide how to act, behave and respond to any given situation."
someone might say that if a person is under great stress to act, or is being pressured or even tortured to do something is this person powerless?
no, one might answer, this person has the power to act, but he is choosing not to. such a person who does not exercise power in such a circumstance is-- cowardice? self-deluded?
there seems to be danger is declaring people in desperate, threatening and dehumanizing situations to be powerful and free to act?
are there then some times when we become powerless to act?
"5. Living by broad, well-thought-out tenets facilitates positive personal change."
this might be true, but certainly having to first sort out the well-thought out tenets removes some of the joy in experimentation. isn't it much more valuable to improve oneself or the world in a surge of altruism rather than awareness of one's own magnanimity? for instance, through assisting with food not bombs for the first time, i used direct action to meet human needs, namely, by giving food to poor and hungry of my community without red-tape or pledges to adopt certain religious obligations. if i had thought about
the principles underlying my actions, the practical effect would be to become righteous about it, and want attention.
the spontaneity of direct action and the anarchist tradition has its own value that might be lost if one takes the fifth principle seriously.
should an exception be made to this principle that is consistent with this criticism?
"6. Learn from your mistakes. Reflect on them at length, for days or months if necessary, to figure out what happened and how to change yourself to be more in line with who you want to be."
is it rhetorical flourish to say that one should "reflect on one's mistakes for months?" if you had written years or decades, would this be consistent with what you mean? is it really necessary to think about one's mistakes more than anything else in life, because taking such time is necessary for the learning process? there seems to be a commitment to this, and it sounds like a real problem for, say, a lawyer who is busy with daily tasks.
"7. Reflect on your activities and behaviors and how they impact the world around you. Try to change your behavior so it changes the people and communities how you want them to change."
are we responsible for reflecting on how other people impact us and the world around us? is someone else is unreflective, does one have a right to change their behavior? if not, does one have a right to persuade them to change their behavior? must one hope that the other will be persuaded to reflect on his or her own life by following one's exemplar life?
"8. The whole world changes over time. Our collective willful action shapes how it changes. Even small scale actions change other people’s lives, and you can never know the full positive impact of a good deed. Likewise, you can never know the full negative impact of a bad deed."
Human beings are quite ignorant about the u n f o r s e e a b l e effects of their actions, whether the actions are good or bad. should one assume in practice that good decisions, no matter how small, will have great future impacts on the world? and likewise for bad decisions?
doesn't this way of thinking make someone seem somewhat haughty in that one can have faith that one's small good actions will have great future impacts? the person who recycles conscientiously and shuns meats and meat-derived products is
doing the world good? and confirmation of their haughtiness would be that one whose small bad actions will have bad, large-scale future impacts?
do-gooder: "my small act of goodness is all I need to do in life; your small bad actions are equivalent to horrible future impacts. i am a saint; you are a tyrant"
Is this a fair inference?
also, how do we know what the value of an action is, unless we know all of its effects? if an alleged "small good action" turns out to have an immeasurably catastrophic consequence in the future, is that "small" act really a "good" one?
if we cannot know the morality of our actions for sure given that we don't know all of their effects, why should we prefer small good ones, to small bad ones?
do we have to work with what's forseeable?
"8. Silence. Being careful with words and listening to other people more than talking. This shows to other people that you value what they think, as well as makes them value your words more."
Silence and listening appear important, especially for lawyers arguing "on their feet." yet lawyers use silence and weigh words so as to attack the other's position, exploit and do violence to the other's premises and conclusions.
is silence then a morally-neutral technique?
"9. Non-violence in word and thought as well as in physical presence."
Non-violence seems to mean the absence of something, the absence of violence. but what about having passion and being affirmative? how can one be demanding in terms of what one believes in - say, justice or truth in a given circumstance - without being provocative or threatening to others?
how can one apply non-violence to, say, an interview process? there, the goal seems to be to reward those who have strong principles and have proven dedicated to them in their lives.
how can one apply non-violence to a ideological opponent? suppose someone strongly believes in a position X, which your position is inconsistent with. How can one show this person in a passionate, affirmative way the wrongness in his or her view and the correctness in one's own?
is non-violence a principle that we should strive toward, but make exceptions for in our everyday lives?
"10. Truth. Not lying beyond white lies."
what if you could lie to prevent the deaths of thousands of people, and you knew you could prevent these deaths? would a lie in this case be a "white" lie and therefore accepted according to the tenth principle, or would it be a vicious, unpardonable lie?
are pretexts and false pretenses white lies? or bad lies?
if everybody lied, and lying is knowingly not disclosing the truth, then everybody would know that others were lying. Therefore, everybody might know the truth. consequently - is lying that bad if everyone's doing it?
or is there something that is fundamentally wrong with lying, apart from the practical effects of it, such as preventing people from knowing the truth?
is lying, for lack of a better word, lecherous?
"11. Humanization. When I think of other people, no matter who they are or what they have done, I try to humanize them in my mind, not letting myself write them off as bad people. Seeing myself in other people is another way of saying this."
through personal interactions, those who know you might have heard you jokingly refer to others as "assholes." even if joking, does this off-the-cuff, off-the-record labeling of others violate the eleventh principle? or is it too trivial to consider?
"12. Faith that the universe is dominated by good, and reminding myself of this."
if the universe were not dominated by good, and not necessarily dominated by "bad." how would you act? is the twelfth principle an emergency consideration such as when one is dealing with an unfortunate experience?
"13. Reflecting on everything. On my behavior, others behavior, consequences of any given action, tenets etc. This includes the development of self-knowledge and an understanding of oneself."
should we all have mental-journals? are we doing a disservice to ourselves in not having one, mental or physical, electric or otherwise? how often should we reflect on our early entries? should we at all?
"14. Being non-judgmental. Being judgmental gets in the way of seeing other people as full human beings, and it burdens you with unpleasant feelings and emotions. Forgiveness helps alot with maintaining a non-judgmental outlook. Besides, I feel like reality deals out harsh judgements and punishments to people as it is, I see no reason to add to that misery."
is the good life one that is judgement free, is the judgement free life, care-free? should one live as a judge in life, but only make judgments on sufficient evidence and those that have addressed all of the counter arguments?
I admire your principles, your spiritual practice, and intend to adopt it myself. but i have concerns about a few or most of the principles. I find some of them problematic and others unsettling. I hope that you can clarify them, enrich them and further your "experiment with the Truth"
And, I apologize if I appear like a madman. Look closer, and you'll see that I'm "sharpening my knife on the kerb."
(I sort of miss this...it was common in the glory days of student activism.)
ah, I see I forgot to respond to these... sorry about the delay!
so, some responses by the numbers:
1. everyone I have ever met has changed over time, to varying degrees. law school intentionally tries to change us in certain ways, I think many people go along with the program without giving it much thought. I think they are consenting to change, even if they are not consciously doing so. part of the challenge is simply identifying how we change and what impacts us so we can influence the process. I don't know how automatic the change is, but experience changes people and it is not always predictable how it will change them.
2. I wouldn't say that a person is stuck with an identity for life if they do not resist it. Indeed, I think this point could be broadened to mean that whatever actions we take and whatever experiences we have shape us, so take willful, deliberate, and well-practiced action to influence how the change happens.
I agree, there is value in addressing the ambiguity in the practice, and there is bound to be plenty since this is just a summary.
3. As scary as it can be, there is always a choice to make. Most people assume that violence produces consent instantly from fear, but it is not written into human nature that we respond that way to fear. there are plenty of examples of people choosing great pain on principle over no pain and violation of principle. The Melian Debate is an example of that. Part of being powerless is assuming that there is no choice... when we realize that we have a choice to act and try to think outside the culturally constructed boxes, then creative choices present themselves... here is a great example of this principle: http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right
the guy was mugged, but chose a different way to respond outside the norm that everyone expects. Creative options exist for any given situation, even if we do not have the imagination to develop them immediately.
I do not declare people in bad situations free to act, if they were free they would not have the pressures of a bad situation. But I do want to acknowledge that they are full human beings and capable of making choices outside of what we expect of them. I think people become powerless to act when they believe themselves powerless to act... usually when they are alone and feel unsupported. I'm not trying to blame them, that has just been my own experience for when I feel powerless, and seems to be the mental dynamic behind it. Stepping outside of that is hard.
5. the way I have developed my tenets has been through action and reflection upon that action. I see them as inherently linked and mutually supportive instead of in opposition. I think the best way to figure out tenets is to do something then think about it... nothing I have written should be construed to prevent people from living before they figure out tenets to live by. living is how you figure it out.
I don't think the effect of reflection should be attention-seeking... especially if you have a tenet of being humble. I think it is more a function of knowing yourself and having a guide to help you make future decisions. You don't have to tell anyone about your thought processes to do a spontaneous altruistic act.
6. there are some things that I have reflected on for years. and i have grown from that process. maybe I am just pensive, but sometimes it takes a long time to understand yourself... patience is pretty essential. of course, only do it if it works for you, if it stops working, switch to a different method to develop an understanding of yourself. in response to it being a problem for a busy lawyer... don't miss the forest by focusing too intensely on the trees.
7. sure, i agree that you should reflect on how other people impact you and the world. that has been a big part of my practice in law school, looking to see how school affects the people around me, and how the people around me affect me.
Changing others behavior is not our direct responsibility, in my opinion, we can only really control ourselves. but we do have a responsibility for the welfare of our community, and I think we do have the right to speak our opinions and try to persuade others. Our behavior impacts other people, and we always change the people we come in contact with, even if it a very small change. So the prime way I try to change people is indirectly, by just being myself around them... I don't often tell people directly to do something different (although sometimes I do, if I know them well enough). You can try to directly persuade people to change, but that is only a piece of the puzzle of broader social change. my experience rings true with this quote from Gandhi: “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching”
8. I think it boils down to the effect of means on ends. I do not think that good means will only produce good ends, but it has been my experience that good means produce a higher proportion of good ends than bad means. I have also been taken aback at how some of my small actions have drastically changed the lives of people around me, and there is a correlation between good means and good ends.
You know how sometimes something someone says sticks in your mind for a long time? They probably don't remember it, but you do, and it has had a larger impact than the person would have thought. I try not to underestimate the power of small acts. This doesn't mean that there will be an immense future impact when you do a small act, but the possibility is there. good and bad seem to ripple through the social fabric too, and those ripples are even harder to foresee.
I don't think small acts are all we need to do in life, if the opportunity presents itself for a big act, those need to happen too. nor do I condemn people for doing bad stuff... we all fail sometimes. so... i think the inference you make is stretching a bit.
mostly I am content to know that I cannot foresee or even know the full impact I make, but I do think it loosely follows a pattern of good produces more good and bad produces more bad. so i try to act with that pattern in mind. that is why we should prefer good acts to bad, because it will likely produce proportionally more good for us and our loved ones. all of this is very abstract, but it is what i have distilled from reflecting on my experiences. I don't think we have to only work with what is foreseeable, because our foresight is often wrong. going off of foresight is nice, but it doesn't always pan out.
on silence... I think people can certainly use silence to hurt others feelings... the kind of silence I am referring to is not being too quick to speak and to think about what you are going to say. plus I also just like sitting in group silence, especially in a settling like a quaker meeting. it is something I personally enjoy.
9. Nonviolence is quite the topic and very broad. the kind of nonviolence i like to practice is Gandhian-style, where you do not shy away from struggle and confrontations, yet you do not demonize your enemy and actively seek to benefit everyone involved. part of this tenet is not holding malice towards others, and not threatening them physically. there are nonviolent threats, though, like "we will come to your city hall and sit down and you will have to arrest all 1000 of us." that is very clearly a threat, but it is not a violent one... it escalates conflict without physically hurting people.
to apply nonviolence to an interview process... I am not sure exactly what you mean. i guess my general answer would be "don't be an asshole"
what is your definition of non-violence? you seem to be assuming it is not passionate, vocal, or militant. It can be all of those. there are many versions of nonviolent action, it is the universe of actions except for violence.
convincing people is easiest to do nonviolently, in my opinion. and I think it is also easier to do with actions than with words. some people who mostly agree will be won over with words, but opponents never will be. one of the typical methods in nonviolent strategy is applying pressure to them, both directly and indirectly, and getting secondary and tertiary targets to apply pressure. as Fredrick Douglass said, "power concedes nothing without a demand." and that demand has to be strong and forceful. nonviolent action brings an issue into a crisis so that people who have consistently ignored the issue have to negotiate. it is a way of getting opponents to the table without the intense alienation they feel when violent struggle happens.
I think all of these tenets are things I strive to do in my daily life, and don't make exceptions to them. I don't always succeed in following them, but that is more a failure on my part than me letting myself off the hook with an exception.
10. Sure, I would lie to prevent deaths. some tenets trump others, life is more scared in my book than truth.
also, I don't think there is anything that is unpardonable. forgiveness is important.
i think it depends on the pretext whether it is bad or not. i think lying is intentionally misleading people... and the reason I think it is best avoided is because it causes mistrust and hurts people's feelings. and just look at how the government lies to us, it is so immoral. i do think lying is bad if everyone is doing it.
I think the practical effects are the prime reason for truth, because it helps maintain a strong community and protect people. I'm not sure what you mean by lecherous.
11. I think some off-the-cuff remarks do dehumanize people. I try to focus on the act and not the person... so not "they are an asshole" but "they were acting like an asshole" or "their actions where shitty." hate the act, not the person... the person is capable of acting better.
12. it is hard for me to imagine your hypothetical. i think this faith helps me through hardships, but I also think it helps me stay focused in my life in general and not worry too much about my failures. it is just generally affirming.
13. I think reflection would help most people, but I also think people should do what makes sense for them. if my level of reflection wouldn't work, I wouldn't want that person to do it. I do think reflecting on how we have changed over time, by thinking about our early selves, is useful in understanding ourselves.
14. It is really hard to not judge other people, and I think it helps us not dehumanize them. it is hard to put down universals that apply to other people, but for me, it feels better to not judge other people. I don't think a judgment free life possible... or care-free. Caring is pretty important. I think I mean judging in the narrow sense of judging other people. I certainly judge the merits of ideas and strategies.
I hope I have clarified them for you, feel free to ask more questions... sorry it took me so long to respond. You don't appear like a madman, just a very thoughtful person. thanks for the fun conversation, as always.
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