Virtue and Goodness

Cultivation speaks of virtue, of doing good and accumulating virtue. Yet what is virtue, and what is goodness? On this, people disagree: some cling to their own views, some are vague, some pretend to be profound.

What is goodness? Is a good heart more important, or good deeds?

If a good heart is what matters, then when countless believers release animals, surely their hearts are good — but does that bring merit?

If good deeds are what matter, then the rich and powerful, whose single decision can save thousands, does all merit belong to them alone?

What, then, is the standard of goodness? In history, how many massacres were carried out in the name of good?

If killing one person to save a hundred is called good, what about ten, five, three, two, or one? Where, then, lies the boundary between good and evil?

If a good heart leads to an evil act, how should it be judged?

If doing good is to accumulate virtue, then what is virtue? What kind of goodness can accumulate virtue?

If doing good is only for the sake of virtue, then goodness itself becomes a transaction — a trade with Heaven, Earth, and spirits. What, then, is true goodness?

Questions such as these trouble many people, and make many seemingly complete explanations fall short.

The laws of Heaven and Earth are simple. Heaven and Earth give birth to all things so that life may flourish without end. This is the great goodness of Heaven and Earth — it is virtue, it is the Dao. For living beings, to strengthen themselves and their kind, to strive without ceasing, is the guidance of Heaven and Earth toward goodness. There are no strict statutes binding it, nor spirits idly measuring each person’s good and evil to decide fortune and misfortune.

The root of Heaven and Earth is purity and turbidity. To accord with the Dao is to be pure. Living between Heaven and Earth, if one disciplines oneself by the Dao, one becomes ever more clear and bright. Clarity responds to clarity, producing what we call the bearing of good and evil. Clarity rests in the heart, not in outward acts. Whether rich or poor, noble or lowly, one may have clarity. Good deeds may differ in scale, but the heart is the same. With a heart of goodness, one can then act with goodness — this is the unity of knowing and doing.

Yet what accords with the Dao has no fixed standard. One can only seek a good heart, and in the process of doing good, deepen understanding. Over time, one’s grasp of goodness grows clearer, more aligned with the Dao, and thus becomes virtue. This is doing good and accumulating virtue.

All beings live within Heaven and Earth and thus have their own standpoint. To abandon that standpoint and speak in the abstract is to erase the distinction of good and evil. It is the nature of wolves to eat sheep, and of sheep to flee. A sheep that helps wolves eat other sheep is not goodness, nor is a wolf that helps sheep escape other wolves goodness.