Balance is living within natural and moral limits. Exceeding limits create an imbalance, a moral violation of the life’s sacred purpose of caring for all life and the Earth. Justice restores balance through reducing what is too much and increasing what is not enough. Consent, gratitude, and reciprocity preserve the balance. Protecting balance requires a firm inner resolve to care for Earth and all life in the ways of the spirit.
Complicity is the willingness to harm others or the Earth for self-benefit or hostility for them and then ignore the suffering such actions cause.
Cosmos is the sacred universe.
Exceptionalism, the belief that a group is superior to others in ways that the it considers essential, causes the group to judge that others have less value than it. The group feels morally justified to dominate and exploit others. Those who judge others less than they believe they have every right to exclude the others from moral consideration and feel justified to do whatever they want to the less worthy.
Harmony is having friendly relationships with other people, the Interbeing, and the Earth and moving in the same direction as the spirit to care for all life and the Earth. We interrelate with others and fulfill our sacred responsibility through such means as kindness, respect, honesty, agreeableness, and compassion.
Interbeing. All life and the Earth are one within the spiritual whole: the sacred interbeing. Interbeing emerges out of the harmonious interactions of the parts, and the parts and the whole move in the ways of the spirit. The love for the spirit, Earth, and all life unites all and transforms the parts into a devoted community of interbeing that benefits all.
Self-righteousness. When convinced of the rightness of our actions or beliefs, we tend to have an overly high but self-deceiving opinion of ourselves. We feel superior. Others experience us as arrogant, elitist, and self-aggrandizing.
Virtues shape our behavior and align us with the spirit. The Creative brings forth the good and great, which we experience as love. The Creative causes all life to develop and flow within natural limits, regulating and organizing love, which we call a moral discipline that benefits all. The Creative transforms life so that each attains its true nature, a power that we call justice that ensures that all life has the means to achieve its potential according to its being. The Creative harmonizes all life within interbeing, which we call wisdom, and separates what endures from what perishes. The sage uses these virtues to shape the world.
Ways of the Spirit
Loving and caring for all. Sages harmoniously relate to all people, beings, and the Earth with love and care. The wise know the great interbeing in which each being offers its gifts for the well-being of all.
Knowing all is sacred. Sages have the clarity to perceive the sacred within all. They have the wisdom to understand the situation and discern the path through difficulties. Sages have faith in the transformative power of love.
Living within limits. Sages have the firm discipline to live within natural and moral limits in a balanced way. They overcome their self-cherishing and hostility for others, avoid entangling themselves with what harms, and hold themselves responsible for their actions. Sages renounce exceptionalism in all its forms and free themselves of complicity with what harms.
Acting to resist the harmful and to promote the well-being of all. Once they know the path forward, sages firmly and decisively act in the ways of the spirit to fulfill their duty to care for the Earth and all life, the Great Purpose. Sages resist what harms and further what restores harmony and balance of the Earth and Interbeing.
World does not refer to the Earth but to how people live on Earth. The world – civilization, culture, history, society, beliefs, technology, worldly influences – is embedded as a subsystem within the natural system. People create their world through the choices they collectively make.
Worldly concerns are the amoral ways in which the selfish willingly harm others for self-benefit and then ignore the suffering they cause. Selfish individuals seek power and domination over others and willingly use violence to do so. The selfish accumulate wealth through the unlimited exploitation and ultimate destruction of people, other life forms, and the Earth. The selfish seek the attention of others. The selfish consume as much as they can and expect others to meet their needs.