Reflecting on Virtue

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In our Circle Meeting recently several of us have been feeling the relentlessness of difficult challenges in our lives. In my own life I’m struggling through a divorce and the strange and unpleasant process of having my life ‘valued’ and divided up. My days seem to be full of administration involving agents, solicitors and such like, who (as far as I can make out) never do what they say they will, take forever and cost a fortune…such that it feels like being in the grip of modern day vampires! Meanwhile, in other parts of the world, women are raped on their way to get essential drininking water from a well or are abused in their own homes…

A wise friend of mine once said ‘there is no hierarchy of suffering’ and it seems true to me that whatever others suffer, each of us often faces our own struggles alone and at times feels overwhelmed. Sometimes it’s the small things that grind us down… the daily juggling of money, having to find a another rented home every six months, that load of wet firewood or the day the telephone stops working. I think also that it’s not just the difficulties, it’s how they make us feel about ourselves and others.

Recently I’ve repeatedly felt disappointed in others and disappointed in myself… in my own inclinations towards shame, anger or despair. Not that there’s anything wrong with these emotions, they seem like pretty understandable responses to hurt and loss…but I don’t want to dwell in them, I don’t want them to form my thinking about myself and the world.

At such times it can be hard to know where to look for solace or inspiration. I find I can develop a horror of spiritual self help books for example and that if any new age guru were to even murmur that ‘you create your own reality’…I’d probably just have to kill them. Period! So I hesitate to even suggest any spiritual reflections, given that one person’s deep spiritual solace is another’s vomit inducing cliche…

Nevertheless I have found myself reflecting on virtue. It’s a rather unfashionable word but a quick visit to good old Wikipedia shows that every spiritual tradition has been concerned with virtue or ‘moral excellence’ for many hundreds of years. When faced with bad behaviours in others or ourselves, how are we to respond? Careful observation, compassionate witness, mindfulness or suchlike seems always to be a good place to start, but sometimes I find the destructive side of such experiences calls for more than simple observation, a more dynamic calling up of the powers of good in life.

So in this spirit I reflect on and attempt to practise virtue. There’s no ‘should’ here…I’ll not be virtuous because I ‘should’ but because I choose light in the face of my small darknesses, because I want to feel hopeful and happy… because focusing on kindness or patience or sympathetic joy or whatever virtue seems the appropriate healing to the particular suffering I am in, actually works to transform me (and sometimes the situation) for the better.

Is there a ‘how to be virtuous’ guide? Probably, somewhere! I go for the simple approach…we use our minds to dwell on our pains, so why not use them to dwell on healing? The Buddhists are good at this. I still remember and use the meditation practices I was taught in my Buddhist days of speaking, imagining and cultivating loving kindness for myself and others. I start with myself and people I find easy to like and then move up to agents, solicitors etc! The trick is not to skip the easy ones or to be tempted miss out the difficult ones …sometimes loving oneself is the hardest…

Abbot Christopher Jamison has some good, straightforward words of wisdom on virtue in his book on finding sanctuary. I love what he says about virtue being the door to the sanctuary…”Virtue is the recognition of the sacred in daily life. As we open the door of virtue in our personal and working lives, we will open the way into a sanctuary of peace for ourselves and others.”