What is ‘good’ and ‘bad’?
Is there something we can label ‘bad’? What is our role in co-creating a ‘good’ world? Should we take action for the thriving of all life?
We all know suffering. It is very real, and we all have experienced it. But can we transcend it? What if we could go beyond the eons of evolutionary struggle and paradigm of ‘survival of the fittest genes’ into conscious co-creation1?
1) Is there something we can label ‘bad’?
How do we know what is ‘bad’ in the bigger picture, given what is labeled and identified as ‘bad’ can lead to things that are ‘good’?
Explorations:
- Thich Nhat Hanh’s story of the rose and the garbage. Interbeing. Empathy and compassion for sentient beings.
- Dalai Lama: The purpose of life is to be happy.
- Alan Watts
- Story of the salad and the snail. Is this nihilism justified, given the real pain and suffering experienced by sentient beings? What when it comes to emotional examples like Hitler? Can we really claim Hitler was necessary or ‘not bad’?
- It depends on the ‘magnifying glass’. What scope are we looking at? ‘What is conflict at one level of magnification is harmony at a higher level’. Videos: ‘All makes sense’ and ‘The universe does not make mistakes’.
- Eckhart Tolle
- Sin = ‘missing the mark’
- Illustration of ‘maybe’ and the story of the Taoist farmer and the horse in the book ‘a New Earth’ or in this medium article citing Alan Watts
- The big Theory of Everything by Tom Campbell: It’s all a simulation and consciousness is experiencing - the less resistance the less suffering
- The apparent dysfunction of a caterpillar in the cocoon stage is needed for it to become a butterfly. See for example the Innovation Show and Aidan McCullen’s example here.
2) What is the role of suffering?
What is the role of suffering? Can and should it be avoided?
3) What is our role and responsibility as ‘co-creators’?
Can we say that everything plays a role in the larger whole - even the things that are ‘bad’ - and still take action in the now to reduce suffering?
Perspective 1
All just is
What we think is ‘good’/’bad’ may not be so on a bigger scale. Parable of the Chinese farmer and the horse - Alan Watts/Eckhart Tolle
‘We’ might not have agency/a role to play in how reality unfolds
All paths are ‘ok’, some just come with suffering, and others don’t
All just is
What we think is ‘good’/’bad’ may not be so on a bigger scale. Parable of the Chinese farmer and the horse - Alan Watts/Eckhart Tolle
‘We’ might not have agency/a role to play in how reality unfolds
All paths are ‘ok’, some just come with suffering, and others don’t
Perspective 2
Life-friendly futures/worlds with less suffering are possible and desirable
Some outcomes are worse than others, and we have a role in shaping them
Suffering is real and being compassionate, we aim to reduce suffering (Buddhists like Thich Nhat Hanh)
Intention matters - there is a point in ‘designing’
Life-friendly futures/worlds with less suffering are possible and desirable
Some outcomes are worse than others, and we have a role in shaping them
Suffering is real and being compassionate, we aim to reduce suffering (Buddhists like Thich Nhat Hanh)
Intention matters - there is a point in ‘designing’
See also: The scribble page on ‘our role in co-creating’.
Learning from the forest
The mud
It is murky. Sticky.
At the same time, it’s the substratum for plants and life. No mud, no lotus (Thich Nhat Hanh)
At the same time, it’s the substratum for plants and life. No mud, no lotus (Thich Nhat Hanh)
The poo
It doesn’t smell nice. It’s not desirable (for us). But it’s the nutrition for other living beings. The larvae of flies. The most beautiful and ethereal plants (insert Thich Nhat Hanh on the rose and the garbage in ‘Peace is every step’).
The storm and fire
The storm breaks off branches from the tree. Sometimes even the whole tree gets unrooted. The storm destroys. And enables new life.
The wildfire in Africa fertilises the Amazon (Netflix documentary ‘Our Living World’)
The wildfire in Africa fertilises the Amazon (Netflix documentary ‘Our Living World’)
Carbon
It matters where it is, and in what proportion. An element itself is not bad or good. Too much CO2 in the air = climate change.
Carbon in the tree = enabling life.
A bit of ... contributes to health and thriving. Too much of it is poisonous.
Carbon in the tree = enabling life.
A bit of ... contributes to health and thriving. Too much of it is poisonous.
The young dying sapling
Many saplings die young. They don’t receive enough light.
“We could say that the totality, life wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And, if it has to die prematurely, it dies with ease.”
“We could say that the totality, life wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And, if it has to die prematurely, it dies with ease.”
Eckhart Tolle (2006). “A New Earth (Oprah #61): Awakening to Your Life's Purpose”, p.164, Penguin
Neighbouring offspring trees
They are connected to the mother tree. Receive nutrients. And the reach for the same rays of sunlight.
Collaboration vs competition?
Collaboration vs competition?
The moth and streetlight
The moth gets attracted to the streetlight.
The moth’s programme guides it to the (moon)light. The same programme also gets it so attracted to lamps, these new artificial light sources, even though it’s unhelpful to the moth’s life to constantly fly into the lamp.
The moth’s programme guides it to the (moon)light. The same programme also gets it so attracted to lamps, these new artificial light sources, even though it’s unhelpful to the moth’s life to constantly fly into the lamp.
Further explorations
Are there ‘good’ actions/parts in us? Are some emotions and states ‘bad’?
Do we have a responsibility to ‘evolve’, grow and transcend?
What about enlightenment? Is there something to seek and go for?
- Book ‘Siddhartha’ by Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha’s path and Gautama Buddha - is there something to ‘improve’?
- Yoga: The Yamas and Niyamas
Is there ‘sin’?
Is a repeated pattern to something life-unfriendly part of ‘us’ and our Karma? If I am finding myself in a life-unfriendly situation repeatedly, is that bad? Is it avoidable?
What is ‘us’? What layer of the ‘onion of experience’ is ‘us’? Where do we start and end?
Eckhart Tolle: “to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence.” Book: A New Earth.
Non-dualism
Don Miguel Ruiz: Four Agreements.
Joe Dispenza on higher-frequency emotions like bliss, love and lower-frequency emotions like guilt, fear, anger. Does this imply some are better than others?
S N Goenka: How to deal with anger and ‘negative emotions’.
Pema Chödrön: Shenpa and getting hooked. Book: Getting unstuck. Dealing with destructive addictions.
Inner Nature Training by Ramona Laich: Anger, Sadness, Fear and Joy as equivalent and valid types of emotions.
See the page on ‘co-creating’.
- Alan Watts: we are responsible for everything and nothing (see Spotify and Wake Up App recordings of Alan Watts)
- 50/50 as a guiding principle. We are co-creating. Intention matters, and action matters. At the same time, we are surrendering to the unfolding of life.
1 Could it be that we have the ability to transcend the eons of evolutionary struggle and paradigm of ‘survival of the fittest’?
“To genes, animal suffering is simply a useful tool—so the animal world is full of suffering. Genes have no higher principles, so neither does the animal world—no such thing as rights, no concept of right or wrong, no concern with fairness. Animals woke up in the heat of a universe pressure cooker, playing an unwinnable game they never signed up for, and that’s all there is to it.”
(Wait but Why)