Key Character Qualities in Buddhism and Taoism
A Universal Perspective on Core Eastern Values
Sep 18, 2008
There are many positive character qualities that are important to students of Eastern philosophy and spirituality. Among these are the key values of compassion, conscience, and integrity, which will be examined in this article.
Compassion
Compassion, very simply, is shared suffering. To have compassion is to share, in some sense, in the suffering of another living being.
How is it possible to share in the suffering of a another being if people are each disconnected individuals? Quite plainly, it is not. Rather, compassion is based in the realization that individuals are ultimately interconnected and share in the same fundamentally undivided reality. Compassion is the natural result of a correct understanding of reality. Compassion, therefore, is wisdom in action.
While a prodigious intellect indicates conventional "genius," it is ethical qualities such as compassion, conscience, and integrity which are the marks of psychological and spiritual genius. Such figures as Albert Schweitzer, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, for example, embody the sort of "genius" human beings perhaps ought to be more concerned with.
Although imperfect like everyone, these leaders practiced compassion and other advanced qualities with enough consistency to ensure that their names will never forgotten. Although ordinary people can scarcely hope to reach their level, the opportunity to develop compassion and a fair measure of spiritual advancement is open to each individual.
Conscience
Conscience, or con-science, can be literally translated as "knowing better." Conscience is the voice of that part of the mind which intuitively understands that reality is one, and that as a result, "treat others as you would like to be treated" is the natural approach to human relations.
Ideally, conscience guides and shapes an individual's actions in a direction which accords with the true undivided nature of reality. However, in the hectic modern world with its materialistic values, people have learned to marginalize and even ignore the voice of conscience.
Even so, anyone can re-connect with conscience through the practice of mindfulness (staying aware of reality). The root of the term "religion" means "to re-connect." Religion need not have anything to do with dogma or rigid beliefs. Rather, it can be seen as a way to re-connect with reality.
Conscience, like compassion, is a natural result of correct understanding.
Integrity
Integrity is literally the quality of being integral or integrated - that is, being whole.
Wholeness, and therefore integrity, requires an understanding of the true nature of reality. When it is realized that all things are one, and that separation is only an appearance rather than the ultimate state of being, individual consciousness can begin to base itself in wholeness rather than in division.
In the context of Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, integrity consists of understanding the oneness of being and acting in accordance with that understanding. It means practicing what we preach, and behaving in ways that recognize others as our extended selves.
Developing integrity is a difficult and never-ending process. Each person always has room for further progress. When the easier and more obvious aspects of integrity are mastered, more subtle and challenging aspects present themselves.
There are numerous other ethical and spiritual concepts that are important and Buddhism and Taoism, and upcoming articles will explore some of them - including the concept of getting beyond concepts.
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