DISILLUSION WITH BEING A GOOD PERSON
Friend: After many years of service and devotion, trying to be a good person, I have come to realize that this does not work and that it is no the highest path. Can you say more about that?
Reply: Being a good person is an image that arises to you. This image is what draws you, like a carrot on a stick draws a donkey. You are following an image and you believe that you are a bunch of images and thoughts. You are seeking a better image and feeling, are you not?
An image may arise that says: So and so is a bad person, I am good. And you believe that. Don’t you?
So you continue to live and perceive the world as a fiction, perceiving through the prism of thoughts and feelings.
You mistake yourself to be a set of images and you are not aware of that.
Images are like clouds and mist. they are not truth. They are mentation.
Good and bad are mind, mentation, thought and projection. Good and bad go hand in hand. They are not absolute, they are not truth. As you are trying to be good, bad lurks in the background. As you are being bad, good lurks in the background. You vacillate between relative good and bad as a leaf in the wind of thought.
Are you looking for a better practice, a better image to attach yourself to?
Can you remain without any crutch? The purity of Being, the innocence of Being, the freshness of Being? Or do you want to continue to hold on to some image of yourself?
Can you take a look? Can you go beyond good and bad, beyond thought, beyond limited knowing and remain still as not-knowing aware presence?
Check it out.