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| A Witch "Queen" & her tools. |
"Muditā (Pāli and Sanskrit: मुदिता) means joy; especially sympathetic or vicarious joy. Also: the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being..." -- Wikipedia
A kindred spirit recently mentioned the Japanese concept of jiri rita enman, or the harmony of self-benefitting & benefitting others. In his correspondence, he mentioned this concept from an act of 'doing for the sake of doing' which may or not be quite the same as a practice I call "Facilitating Bliss." Where this behavior may differ from jiri rita enman is that I engage in certain activities quite consciously -- with premeditation -- knowing that I will benefit from the experience of Muditā, or gaining joy from the joy, growth, advantage or bliss (& sometimes recovery) of others.
Facilitating Bliss is a relationship style, a "practice," "tradition" or "Lifeway" (to use a specifically animistic term). It is a way of engaging, relating & cultivating. It is a supporting role, sometimes essential, but rarely central to the stage. I do this for the benefit of my persons (particularly the human ones) & for the experience or sensation of Muditā. It happens that this practice has additional benefits -- if the persons in my world are being enriched, our world in general is enriched -- everyone & everything becomes increasingly juicy.
I also do it because I believe that anything I can do to honour the Old Ones, the spirits of place, or my kindreds is worth my energy & dedication.
This means that sometimes I assist & participate in things that may or may not be my "thing" in an aesthetic or ceremonial way but still serve to Facilitate Bliss. And as Graham Harvey so eloquently stated,
"It isn't about (me) you. It isn't without (me) you.
There is only one world. We live in it together."
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| A ceremonial or mock hazing of sorts: returning to the tweenage years. |
3 comments:
I couldn't really say whether they are the same or not as that would wrongly imply I have more deeply delved them than I have. But the Harvey quote seems to be landing in the same zone.
To me Doing for the doing' - which I'm not claiming to manifest - is beyond the binary of benefiting or not benefiting. One Zen teacher said, (I paraphrase) - when you manifest a passion burn yourself completely. In that fullness the 'working' is its own thing, beyond outcomes, benefits and so on.
My Sparrowhawk friend,
I think the Doing for the doing w/o any benefitting or non-benefitting is beyond me in that unattainably Buddhist sort of way. That is, I don't claim to be so special or enlightened or detached that I do things w/o a sense of desired outcome. I am comfortable with my existence as a fleshworld critter who seeks rewards & invests in those who are close to me -- call it biological reductionism if you wish.
I really groove on helping other people feel good, be good, get their goodies. This is actually an old habit which wasn't entirely healthy for me in the past, but I now have a better sense of how to use it. With some wisdom, hindsight & miles, I can do this now w/o compromising myself or my sanity & make the world -- my world anyway -- a "better" place. More happiness, more healing, more comfort -- these are good conditions in my book.
"...when you manifest a passion burn yourself completely. In that fullness the 'working' is its own thing, beyond outcomes, benefits and so on." Now this, I understand. Yet I still find that I simultaneously look forward to outcomes. So, maybe I have yet to "burn myself completely."
Thank you, as always, for your thoughts & insights. Your offering was exquisite enough to cause me to ache, just a little.
I would distinguish 'beyond' from 'without'. Aiming wholeheartedly of course, but the drawing back and release of the arrow being a wholeness regardless of whether the arrow hits the intended target. I think you probably home in on this when you say:
"I really groove on helping other people feel good, be good, get their goodies. This is actually an old habit which wasn't entirely healthy for me in the past, but I now have a better sense of how to use it. "
As for 'unattainabily Buddhist sorts of ways' versus the fleshworld .... A lot of these things teachings are an 'edge' I find it helpful to work off. Actual attainability may be a mirage. After all the Bodhisttva vows are couched in impossible pairs such as, "Dharma gates are infinite, I vow to master them all."
Even if we drop gnostic type models/cosmologies, the biological fleshworld has unfathomably many hidden and occluded faces, sides and depths; all of which often (always?) make the full causes and outcomes of our doings mysterious and a matter of conjecture or faith. It's in that context that I think it's valuable to enjoy and wholeheartedly manifest the doing regardless of (but not necessarily uninterested or in invested in) the outcome. Not a starchy moral imperative but more a freedom to be, without being limited by the aimed for.
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