Rob Brezsny's Guidelines for Creating a Moral Code:
1. A moral code becomes immoral unless it can thrive w/o a devil and an enemy.
2. A moral code grows ugly unless it prescribes good natured rebellion against automaton-like behavior offered in its support.
3. A moral code becomes murderous unless it's built on a love for the fact that EVERYTHING CHANGES ALL THE TIME, and unless it perpetually adjusts its reasons for being true.
4. A moral code will corrupt its users unless it ensures that their primary motivation for being good is that it's fun.
5. A moral code deadens the soul of everyone it touches unless it has a built-in sense of humor.
from Pronoia, the Antidote to Paranoia by Rob Brezsny.
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In order to truly thrive, you must have a moral code and live by that code. I'm wondering how the Wiccan rede: "An' it harm none, do as thou wilt," measures up to Brezsny's guidelines. How about Crowley's: "Do what thou willt shall be the whole of the law"?
1 comment:
Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus said, "ta panta rhei kai ouden menei" (all things are in a state of flux and nothing is permanent). Or "Everything flows, nothing stand still." Or… "You can't step in the same river twice."
This ties in with the Quality that Robert Pirsig describes in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, too. If one aims toward higher Quality, one need not have an enemy or a devil. In a sense, it's the answer to the "to have light, you must have dark" problem, because it's more like the idea of a circus tent - there's a point at the top toward which everything points. It isn't dualistic because you only measure distance from Quality.
It is also not a fixed, defined point, because it is, in essence, the source of everything. Therefore, you must take responsibility for choosing paths of higher or lower quality - no Big Daddy laying down rules here!
I'm not sure that I buy "fun," but I would "joy." Fun seems to limit things a bit much for my taste, but joy is there even in the hard times, and can break out into laughter, fun, celebration at the slightest opportunity.
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