Three Ethics to Change the World
1) Do no unnecessary harm.
2) Do not presume.
3) Do not compare experience.
The world doesn’t need changing. We do. Read on and live the three ethics and be changed.
Do no unnecessary harm
We can’t live without harming someone or something. Though we can completely avoid doing unnecessary harm. This requires that we are intelligent and compassionately Aware in our state of being, that we embody our power while being gracious in the face of another’s. One requisite for this is being centered and grounded in our body—in the moment—here and now.
We need to be connected with and informed by the non-ordinary forces of the Mystery which guide our choosing and our decision taking—rather than making choices from our emotions and understandings. (The “how” of doing these things is another conversation.)
Do not presume
Nearly all or our difficulties are brought on by ourselves—save for being caught and injured in natural disasters, political or environmental calamities for example. Thinking we know is problematic: thinking we know more, or better, or what’s up when we are actually caught up in the folly of the fables we’ve told ourselves. This is the status quo for most of us. Everything we think we know is story—made up or adopted. Over the years my teacher, Paul Richards, passed these ethics to others and myself—without saying more than identifying them. Me passing them to you is an example of presuming—thinking I know.
Ethics are a model to guide us. The wonderful thing about a model is that we have a model. The problem with a model is that we have a model (limiting our creativity).
Do not compare experience
She’s doing better than me. I’m envious of so and so. I wish I had his job. She’s prettier. He is respected more than me. So and so has been published. I haven’t. I’m the better parent. At least I’m not a drunk. My life isn’t as difficult as his.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
• Psychological experience
Psychologists say “experience is what we do with what happens to us”. They’re correct if we limit the use of the word to mean psychological experience—thoughts and understanding—which is, by the way, a consequence of transforming direct sensory and extra-sensory experience into language and thought.
“I think I know what a strawberry tastes like…” — Jody Richard
But there is more!
• Direct sensory experience
“…until I’m tasting the one exploding in my mouth.” — Jody Rickard
We are sentient: We see, hear, feel, taste and smell things directly—before and without involving thought.
Again, there is more!
• Direct non-ordinary experience
We possess, distinct from our five senses, an array of perceptual faculties through which we experience the non-ordinary realities suffusing our lives. Generally girls and women are best at this, particularly when they keep them active—something patriarchy eschews. Too, there are sensitive boys and men in the world who perceive the non-ordinary.
“I awoke knowing I’d been selected for the promotion.”
“Out of the blue I knew something tragic had happened to so and so.”
“I saw her across the campus quadrangle for the first time and knew we would marry.”
“The phone rang and I knew it was her.”
“Suddenly I knew what I had to do…”
“The solution came to me in the shower.”
There are forces of the Mystery awaiting our detection… awaiting our collaboration… awaiting our co-creation.
Comparing experience is a thought-based-psychological undertaking. It’s predicated on values and beliefs which are themselves constructions of our own, or another’s. They are not real. In the right context they are useful. Others, not so much as they destabilize ourselves and others, impede intimacy, our connection to our creativity, to the Mystery.
1) Do no unnecessary harm.
2) Do not presume.
3) Do not compare experience.
The world doesn’t need changing. We do. Live the three ethics and be changed.
