This made me feel good about my life
12.06.2005 - 11:52 am

Taken from the book Hardcore Zen:

"We're constantly drawing imaginary distinctions between "big" issues and "little" ones. And we think only the "big" issues matter. Actually, though, the tiniest bit of good you do makes the world a better place for everyone. Cleaning those weird orange stains of unknown origin off the toilette isn't solely going to bring about lasting peace in the Middle East, but it helps. It really does. It's part of a chain of cause and effect that affects you and affects the universe. And life for everyone gets a little better. A little of that goes a long way. And it's really impossible to know exactly how or how much.

Chaos theory has it that a butterfly flapping its wings in Central Park can cause a hurricane in South America. Don't discount the similar effect of smiling genuinely at someone you don't really like that much.

Real morality isn't just refraining from doing stuff that's outrageously heinous. Real morality encompasses every thing you do every minute of every day. It includes the way you say "good morning" at work, the way you pay your utility bills, the way you deal with the driver who cuts you off on the freeway. It includes the way you eat and sleep and breathe and scream. It includes how you dress yourself and style your hair -- not that there are "moral dress codes" or "moral hair styles," but the way you approach the things that matters. In the movie Stardust Memories, Woody Allen meets some aliens and starts asking them all the Big Questions About Life. They tell him, "Your asking the wrong questions. If you want to make the world a better place, tell funnier jokes!"

Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.

Real morality comes from each individual, from each of us. Yet this isn't an "I make my own rules, man!" morality. Morality has nothing whatsoever to do with rules -- not my rules, not your rules, not Buddha's rules. Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situaton. Doing what's right in this moment is the only good there is, doing what is not right at the moment is the only evil. A war stops when people stop firing guns at eachother. Treaties and ceremonies are just window-dressing. World peace happens when no one fires guns at anyone anymore.

You bring about world peace when you bring about peace within your own body and mind.

Man that sounds lame! I used to laugh out loud at that kind of thing and it still looks like a load of hippy-dippy crap when I see it written dwon. And yet, as it turns out, it's also true. It's what I've seen, based on my own experience in my own life. And it's what you'll see if you really take the time to look.

Real morality is based on seeing how the universe actually operates and avoiding doing those things that make ourselves and others miserable. It's not that if we're "bad" when we're alive, we go to hell when we're dead. It's not that if we do wrong now, we'll have "bad karma" recorded on some kind of cosmic accounting ledger and we'll spend our next life as a dung beetle. God is the source of you and you are the source of God. If you understand the natural law of cause and effect in your bones you naturally refrain from doing stupid things -- because it all happens to you. You create the cause and you experience the effect.

There are people who think that they can do wrong and get away with it, even profit from it. It don't work that way. This is always inevitably the case. No one gets away with murder. No one gets away with anything. You can't escape the consequences of your immoral acts any more than someone who drops a big-ass amp directly on his foot can escape having broken toe bones. Your life and the life of everyone else in the universe are one seamless whole. To cause another living being pain isn't evil -- it's just stupid. Because that being is you." -- Brad Warner

Yep.

yesterday - tomorrow