Are We Bad (or Good)?

The other day when I reflected on the killing of Osama bin Laden, I found myself dragged over the coals by some for two statements.

The one was confessing that I felt glad before going on to explore how we are all connected and that this event and my emotional response spoke much to both our profound interconnectedness and the sadness that marks much of our human condition. I thought within the shorthand of such things I showed how I felt Mr bin Laden and I grew on the same branch of coral.

The other was that I described the late Mr bin Laden as a bad man.

Some were shocked that a person of the Way might feel glad at the death of another human being. Others, well, often the same folk, really, really, didn’t like my referring to any human being as bad.

As to the emotion thing. It is interesting how we have lots of feelings about how we should feel. I’ve had those feelings about my feelings on occasion, so I certainly don’t feel particularly superior to anyone in this conversation. Although I also add how I’ve not been wracked with any particular guilt for what I feel much in recent years. Somewhere along the line I figured out we feel what we feel. Spending a lot of time regretting our feels seems a tad less useful to me than witnessing the feelings, just like I witness my thoughts. And this witnessing opens doors. For me the disjuncture between my feelings of gladness at the death of someone and my visceral knowing we’re all connected, led to the reflection. A process I suggest to anyone. Could even, on occasion, lead to an adjustment of behavior…

And that leads to what I find myself mostly reflecting on here. To what degree, or at what time, does our behavior define us? Are we always a person who does bad things? Or, good. Or, is there a moment when we become a bad person? Or, good?

In the circles within which I move there is a bias toward avoiding categorical descriptions of people. One is a person with. Often this has to do with disabilities, such as blindness. But it also carries over to behaviors, lying, theft, murder.

Often the assumption is that we are basically good. But, on occasion, even though we’re good, we do bad things. Or, bad things happen to us. But in no case should these things we’ve done be used to define us. Except, perhaps the assumption we are basically good.

For me the obvious reason one might want to avoid identifying someone with some aspect of who they are is that it is easy to “objectify” a person, in essence dehumanize them, and from that making them an other, easily dismissed or even harmed. When the issue is whether one wears a prostheses or has a speech impediment or is blind, it seems at least to me that it is obviously wrong to collapse someone’s personhood into that condition. This justifies the desire on the part of the open hearted that leads to torturous convolutions such as “differently-abled.” Of course one never knows whether one is being generous or “politically correct,” which I understand to mean silly, until one has lived with it for a bit. And I’m all for the mistake to be on the side of the large heart.

Another is how can we be defined by a single act, or even a compulsive action, when there are so many other aspects to who we are? I think it a wise caution.

And…

The person who would become the second ancestor of Chinese Zen went to Bodhidharma and said, “My mind is in turmoil. Please, master, set it at peace.” The first ancestor replied, “Show me this mind, and I will set it at peace.” To which the monk said, “I have searched hard, and I cannot find it anywhere.” To which, with all the kindness of knowing who we really are, Bodhidharma said simply, “I have set it at rest for you.”

I’ve looked deeply into my heart, I’ve watched the currents of my mind, and I see an endless play of events, of moments, if you will, but no spot that exists outside of context. I am contingent.

We are not a dream nor an illusion. We are as real as can be. But, we are conditioned, contingent, woven out of many, many things. All, every last bit, themselves contingent and conditioned.

What existed a moment ago changes in this moment.

My heart and my mind are just a moment. Just this moment.

Now, there’s something else about this mind heart that is me, James, that I’ve noticed. And that is in most every moment I have a choice, or several.

I observe and believe that everything is causally connected, everything is created by something, or multiple things acting. So, in some cosmic sense, I guess one could say it is all pre-ordained. But at our level of existence we choose. At least we choose our actions and reactions. I guess you could say I believe in a functional free will.

I choose who I am in this moment.

Good.

Bad.

As do you.

Good.

Bad.

It is of course very hard to pick one thing and say that is me. I am a person with glasses. I am a person raised at the bottom rungs of our society. I am a white male with multiple college degrees and a profession. I am sometimes kind. I am sometimes indifferent. I desire. And I can be generous. What part is me?

There is a Chinese folk tale about a young woman whose soul is torn asunder by her obligations and love for her family and her love for a young man. One part of her goes away with the young man to make a family. The other part remains in a coma in her family’s home. The spiritual question this story challenges us with, is: which is the real woman?

Who is the real me?

Who is the real you?

Good.

Bad.

Which is the real Osama bin Laden? Hitler was kind to small children and was a vegetarian. I’m sure there were many aspects to Mr bin Laden’s life that were admirable. And even his rage at the West could be understood within context.

And he masterminded the murder of several thousand people, and wanted to kill more.

Bad man?

Me, I said yes. With some hesitation, I admit. And not just because I suspected it would annoy some of my friends.

But, because, at any moment we can change.

Still, at some point we are what we do. A harsh and dreadful truth. And it doesn’t matter if we don’t like it. It is what is.

And some things we do set currents in motion that are endlessly harmful.

And, for short hand, yes, I think we can say Osama bin Laden was a bad man. Or, I am prepared to take responsibility for saying it. (Every choice has consequences, so responsibility seems the right word here…)

With the endlessly arising caveat that the choice of change is for the duration of our lives, possible. Dicken’s Christmas Carol may be maudlin, but it points to a true thing: functionally we have free will. We can change. We can move from bad to good. And, of course, from good to bad.

It has everything to do with how we act.

And yes, I understand this leaves so much hanging, not answered, or even addressed. What’s the equation of good or bad? Where does the scale tip? At what point? And who decides? And, do the same rules apply to nations? I suspect so. But, that belongs in a much longer reflection than this brief dance of a monkey mind…

Two cents on a Friday morning…