I sense that doing automatically good, on auto-pilot, driven by a habitual force, like automatically taking care of somebody, is not really doing good. I tend to see it this way that all this habitual driven behaviour is in the end not really good. It is not really authentic. It is mind in a re-active mode. Also results, i find, are doubtful at least.
I understand that ‘automatically taking care of somebody’, is not bad or immorel. In a mundane sense it is moral to take care of people or animals etc. In that sense it is good and appreciated. But i can also sense it is not really good, it is not really nobel, it is also often not really wise and intelligent. I belief, re-activity isn’t. There is something to re-activity which is not oke.
Isn’t all re-active behaviour a kind of delusion? A kind of being overwhelmed, being fettered, being attached to habitual forces? Can it ever be really called wise in the sense the Buddha meant?
I understand an arahant or Buddha does not automatically, from habitual forces, do good. I belief this is really “doing good” in the most wise and sensible sense.
In a certain way buddha-dhamma is about abandoning immoral thoughts and habits en developing moral thought and habits. That part is a main theme in the sutta’s and also in Lal’s posts. It is meritorious. Sutta’s illustrate that the Buddha was very active in this kind of practise. It is, as it were, a way to close the gates to the lower worlds and to open the gates to heaven. At least, making the changes bigger. It fuels the path to Nibbana too. Ignoring this kind of work is the path of Mara.
But, at least for me, buddha-dhamma is also about becoming really authentic, in the sense that one enters more and more the unconditioned and cuts through the forces of habits. Habitual forces are not who i am, not mine, not myself, but just habitual forces arising. This is also true for moral habitual forces. The ultimate goal, at least that’s how i understand this, is not to do automatically good by force of habit, but to end such force-ful behaviour.
kind regards, Siebe