Embodying Goodness

Embodying Goodness

In every day life, people act as if they are "good people." And perhaps they are, to some some extent. However, if we were truly good people then wouldn't there be a lot less pain and suffering in the world? People have the amazing ability to trick themselves into believing that they are "good people" even if they continuously don't do good things. In Needleman's opinion, "the sin and ignorance of mankind itself and the sin and ignorance of one's own self (93)" are intertwined. The world that we live in is a representation of the people who live in it. In the words of Buddha "Our lives are the creation of our mind." Everyone lives a different reality. No one can fully experience another person's reality because they have no way of knowing all the little experience the other has lived. For some reason, even though all these realities exist within the same world we manage to live. But who is a good person? Who's reality has made them into this person? Who has lived correctly enough to be considered good?

The idea of the body playing a role in goodness was very appealing to me. Religions and philosophers always talk about the inner self and the role of the mind and spirituality, but this is the first time i read about the idea of the body being important in goodness. As Needleman puts it the body is "considered as the instrument of action in the world (105)." Without a body how would people influence the world? We all hear that actions speak louder than words, but looking at it from Needleman's point of view makes it a lot clearer. People can say whatever they want, but they if they don't do anything then it doesn't matter how much they preach. In order to embody goodness one must actually embody goodness. People can speak, and lecture, and talk, and praise, and worship, but if they don't act accordingly none of that matters.

Needleman describes us as "searching for a new kind of body, a body that has a new aim, a new purpose: voluntarily to serve the Good (107)." As we search we must be able to actually accept our findings. If we don't, we will never learn anything and will never be able to make the transformation into this new body that we all seek.