Ethics Before the Mind
La Ética Antes de la Mente
A reflection on how genuine ethical choice arises not from fixed rules but from a living discernment in each moment, pointing beyond identification with the purely instinctual self.
Ethics Before the Mind
A reflection on how genuine ethical choice arises not from fixed rules but from a living discernment in each moment, pointing beyond identification with the purely instinctual self.
That would only be laws. You can learn from the past, and in a general sense you know what is right or wrong from what has come before. But right or wrong in this moment can only come from right now. It is always a moment-by-moment, situation-based discernment. So where is the ethical choice actually coming from? It is coming from before the mind, or let us say, from outside the mind.
The purpose of law
In the past, some things needed laws. The Ten Commandments, for example, existed until people could discern for themselves. "Thou shall not kill" is a pretty good principle, especially in a time when killing was habitual, done for practically any reason one wished. By doing the work of following such a commandment, one had to face the intensity of feeling: the desire for revenge, for instance. That process would separate us from identification with a purely instinctual, human-animal existence, so that what could eventually be seen is that what we are is not only human animal.
Living discernment over fixed rules
The system of law is actually quite well developed in this sense. There is an awareness that there needs to be a trial, that there needs to be a group of people who make a choice in the moment. If you remove that and replace it with a book that tells you what to do in every situation, then you will have to force every situation to fit some part of that book. The system is set up so that at least there is a possibility of a discerning group of people who can make an ethical choice.
It is the same for us at every moment. Are we choosing from the belief in being only a human animal, or are we choosing from that which is mysterious? When it is more the latter, there is an experience of flow, there is well-being, and there is a sense that choosing is happening. There is more of a movement that is harmonious.
The surfer as metaphor
A lot of metaphors point to this. The sense of a surfer is a good one. Even if we have never stood on a board or surfed a wave, we can all intuitively relate to the sense of what that would be like. There is a lot of movement happening. There is a feeling of doing it, and simultaneously there is a present seeing, an observing of that doing, where one is not the one doing. Those two things happen at the same time.
We have all experienced this in different ways, especially through our hobbies or in moments where we felt deep well-being. And so we pursue those hobbies. But we can also realize that what we taste in those moments is always possible.