The Goodness Blog 

Doing Good vs. Being Good

Many of us strive to be good people. When I first met my lama I told him how I wanted his help in overcoming some of my personality flaws. I said I wanted to try to be more patient, for example. His response was, "Don't try."

By that he did not mean, "Don't try... DO!" but rather, "Allow yourself to be as you are." There is an uncomplicated approach to awakening that he leads his students along, and it involves many good deeds, but no one who is there to be good.

As long as you are being "good" you have adopted a label that must now define you. You have identified yourself with a role you must now act in accord with. You have an image to live up to, if only to yourself. Such a role can only limit you, however favorable it may at first appear. Whether the role of the greedy, dishonest businesswoman or that of the self-sacrificing, single mother -- it's all false and it's all limiting. Any of it hides your true light, which shines beyond any script our egos could devise.

Let your true light shine and you won't need to play the part of the good one. Rest in your true being. When you are angry, be angry. When you are smiling, smile. When you are walking, just walk.

Goodness is an aspect of your true being. When you see yourself acting in a way that doesn't seem desirable to you, just recognize the behavior as the habitual display of your worldly conditioning and nothing more. Don't get caught up in judging yourself and punishing yourself for being as people are within samsara, by the very nature of samsara. Don't take it personally.

Similarly, when you see yourself behaving with generosity or some virtue, don't take that personally either. Instead look to see where it is coming from. If it seems to be arising spontaneously from your true nature, recognize that as yourself. If it seems to be coming from a sense of trying to be a good girl or a good boy, then recognize that conditioning in you. (And probably also notice some fear of punishment that comes along with it if you aren't "good enough.") Just watch it. Don't mess with it. Don't try to be better at not trying to be good.

Recognizing the difference between being good and doing good will give you the confidence you need to simply watch yourself play out your roles again and again within the flow of your life, without feeling the compulsion to interfere. This uncomplicated self-awareness is enough to bring you repeated glimpses of freedom.

Over time, this freedom of being will become a habit. Eventually you will not have to remind yourself, "I must watch and be detached, yet attentive." Non-judgmental attentiveness will come naturally to you.

And you will never take life personally. Instead you will recognize everything as the display of either nirvana or samsara, depending on which happens to be pulling the strings of your "puppet-experience" in a given moment. Yet you will remain beyond it all, as the nirvana within the samsara of each passing moment.