Values can only be considered truly valid until one witnesses their value for themselves
Our most existential demand is the need for freedom from, harm, sorrow, and distress. Or expressed more positively, to achieve happiness and well-being. There are many people in the world who claim to hold a path to true peace and happiness. However, many doctrines expound ideas which require a degree of trust and insist upon our faith in them, and in order to avoid pain and secure our well being, it is not sufficient to merely hope. Instead, we can use our present experience, backed by intelligent observation, as a criterion for determining which actions are beneficial and which are detrimental. According to the doctrine of Dependent Origination, whatever arises, arises due to the appropriate causes and conditions. This applies with equal force to suffering and happiness. Thus we must ascertain the causes and conditions that lead to harm and suffering, and likewise the causes and conditions that lead to happiness and well being.
First of all, no doctrine can be considered true until it has been validated through ones own personal experience. So rather than wrestling with issues that, in our present condition, no amount of experience can decide, we should instead consider a few points pertaining to our welfare and happiness, things that we can understand on the basis of our own immediate experience. People are primarily motivated to act though a concern for their own welfare. Even if we suspend all concern for the distant future, harmful behaviors eventually rebound to ones own harm and suffering right here and now. Conversely, beneficial behaviors lead to ones long term welfare and happiness here and now. Once this much is seen, the immediately visible consequences of which harmful behavior lead become a sufficient reason for lessening or abandoning them. Thus a behavior should not be avoided arbitrarily according to some set of rules, but according to our experience with that behavior. It is only when we recognize harm that we should decide to change our behavior. As William Blake put it: “He who desires but acts not breeds pestilence … If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise … You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”
References
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Bodhi, Bhikkhu. (2005). In the Buddha’s Words An Anthology of Discourses From the Pali Canon Chapter 3. Approaching the Dhamma (Location 1543). Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.
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Bodhi, Bhikkhu. (2005). In the Buddha’s Words An Anthology of Discourses From the Pali Canon Chapter 3. Approaching the Dhamma (Location 1568). Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.
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Bodhi, Bhikkhu. (2005). In the Buddha’s Words An Anthology of Discourses From the Pali Canon Chapter 3. Approaching the Dhamma (Location 1644). Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.
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Anguttara Nikaya 3:65; I 188–93
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Type:🔴 Tags: Philosophy / Ethics / Psychology Status:☀️