Reclaim Your Trust in Humanity: Basic Goodness Training Part 3

 In this series we have been practicing discovering the Basic Goodness all around us: in ourselves, in others, in the outdoors, in the very fabric of this reality. I hope that you’ve been able to get at least some glimpses of what this feels like, when you realize your own fully unconditional goodness. I would encourage us all to keep practicing placing our awareness on those moments of Basic Goodness all around us. What we place our attention on is what will grow in our lives, what we train in is how we will react. Choosing to cultivate basic goodness, joyfulness, and genuine connection with others is a powerful choice that will change our future.

In this part 3 of the series, we are going to extend our view to society. “Society is basically good.” How do you feel when you hear that statement – society is basically good?

Pause now as you’re reading this, and take a few moments to feel into what comes up for you.

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Society is a complex creation, and there are many different levels to it. We each are engaged in all sorts of society, beyond the main large-scale one you might think of initially when hearing the word. Our family is a society, the way we interact at our job with our work colleagues creates a society, we may have a society created around our home and neighbors, having coffee with a friend creates society. You may belong to some common interest clubs, also called societies. And of course there is the society of the country you live in. 

In these days of always-on, instant access media, there is often a dominant story being told about our large-scale society. The political situation. Depending on which side you feel like you belong to, the various players are different, but certain elements of the stories are often very similar – the other side does terrible things, we don’t understand why, we must fight back. There is a strong sense that we are right, and they are wrong. We are good, they are bad. The conditional way of thinking is not just part of the story, the whole story is often created all around this.

There are very real harmful situations, this in no way denies that. What if though we could pierce through our reactions to these, and see the basic goodness of our society, which, after all, is composed of people interacting with each other. If people are basically good, then must society not also be basically good? What if the same confusions that occur on the smallest scale of two people interacting with each other, also lead to all sorts of confusion within society, when many people are interacting with each other at complex levels?

The practice this week is to contemplate the statement “Society is basically good”. For the purposes of this practice, I invite you though to put aside the stories that we see all the time through non-intentional media. See if you can try the statement on as if it were true.

We receive a massive number of messages through all sorts of channels to the contrary. For some of us our situation may be that we are only receiving messages that tell the story that society, or at least the society on the other side of the fence from us, is bad. Remember the quote from Timber Hawkeye in the article two weeks ago – the opposite of what you know to be true is also true. So, just for a while, see if you can consider the statement that society is basically good to be true. 

I believe it’s important for us as we develop a clearer view, and a gentler view, that we open up to the possibilities of the basic goodness of society.

What comes up for you? 

You may feel the heart of genuine sadness that we discussed and connected to in week 2. You may feel anger, hurt or fear. You may feel a lot of resistance to the statement, or to putting aside what you believe very deep down to be absolute truths about the situation. 

As fearless warriors we are not training to bring the fight to the other side. We are training to go beyond war. 

Whatever comes up, that is exactly what you can use to train. Let it all be included. And bring gentleness and loving-kindness to yourself as you feel it.

And now also feel into your other societies, beyond the main cultural society. The society that you are part of creating at your work if you go to an office for example. How do you want to show up there? Can you show up from a place of Basic Goodness, with a trust that the society in your place of work is basically good, because you and other basically good humans are the ones creating it?

Every time two people interact, society is created. We are the ones creating it with every conversation we have, every act we do to or with another person or group of people. What sort of society will you create today?

Homework

• Journal about the Basic Goodness of Society, whatever society means for you. We get plenty of statements to the contrary. For this practice, see if you can put all that aside for a while, and try on the statement that society is basically good. Describe how that feels. Share your reflections with me.
• Reflect on and share about how it has been to be more intentional during this month about what input you choose to engage with, if you have been cutting back on non-intentional input. What have you noticed from spending more time on the simple things, like sitting outside, and less on media messages? If you haven’t being doing this, journal about what resistance you are feeling to doing so, and share what came up.
• Also, reflect on what your own basic goodness means to you now, after some time practicing. Do you feel it? Have you discovered an experience of it in your body? What places or situations do you feel yours? How about others? Share your findings.