The importance of view

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

I suspect it is not generally obvious why I am so focused (in a different thread) on the importance of being very clear, inside and outside BSA, that everyone is welcome. In order to not introduce even more to that thread, here is why, in the form of a somewhat poetically phrased view. I think you will recognize how this works in your own experience.

We each have a golden sun of goodness in our hearts, a sun of compassion and wisdom that is the essence of all beings. This gift is available to us day or night, always shining. It is the source of all happiness. It is open like the sky, accommodating all possibilities. It is majestic like a mountain, immovable in its conviction. It is like freshly fallen snow, awake and cheerful. It is like a lush forest, natural and harmonious. It is like a great breeze, refreshing and alive. It is the missing piece that was never missing in the first place. It is our inherent human dignity, what we bow to when we say namaste and what we want to protect with universal human rights.

When beings recognize this sun of goodness and develop doubtless confidence in it, the sky of possibilities opens up and the river of human intelligence comes flooding in. Flowers of love and compassion can sprout. Trees of strength and confidence grow. We feel content and complete as human beings, with strong character, love, and intelligence.

But when we do not recognize our inherent goodness, we are trapped in doubt and fear, and the world closes and becomes solid. Issues become big. Problems seem insurmountable. Life's flow becomes speedy and chaotic. The mind becomes sensitive and nervous. Every small pain and minor irritation becomes distracting. Our energy is low; our vitality appears to be waning day by day. Socially, we have difficulty getting along with others. We become territorial, and anger arises at anything and anybody. In this state, we mindlessly create karma instead of purifying it, perpetually putting into motion negative scenarios that come back to haunt us. The scope of our life diminishes, and we either aspire to do less and less or panic and become overly ambitious.

So when we do not clearly proclaim the existence of primordial goodness, negative forces gain momentum, we become emotionally tight and unapproachable, even minor gestures of love and kindness become difficult. We create social imbalance. But we can avoid all this by simply acknowledging our inherent human worthiness, the rightness of being here as we are. In order to choose the path of luminous brilliance, we have to stay in touch with our own inherent dignity and acknowledge that of others. We need to think it, but we also need to say it and show it. 

When we are a good friend to new scouts (and scouters), when we create a culture where we are friendly, helpful, kind, courteous, cheerful, and loyal to everyone who wants to scout with BSA, whether they are "like us" or not, we unleash that warm wisdom and river of human intelligence for both ourselves and others. This, in turn, sets the whole organization on the path of virtue that scouting builds on, especially for the scouts who may not have found their place in the world yet. If scouts and scouters aren't sure if they're welcome, then the disharmonious path starts creeping in. We prevent that by making sure that everyone is - and feels - welcome.

[qwazse]

I love that “primordial goodness” bit, until I butt up against the head of a scout who picks and chooses the points he wants to obey. The day after a critical incident, the kid literally rattled off the law, skipping “courteous, kind, obedient.”

I corrected him on his omissions and said, “You made vows. They define what a scout is. If someone is the opposite of 1/4 of those things, they are not a scout. This is a scout camp.”

He tried, poorly, and still had to be sent home.

After that, I dealt with self righteous older scouts who should know better but disregarded the same points of the Scout Law — justifying doing so on the shaky grounds that it was their last day of camp.

I’m becoming more generally comfortable with the notion of total depravity, and our need for something to stand as a metric showing how we don’t measure up.

That said, I still try to dig deep and take a play from Aquinas to find the underlying good motivating a soul’s bad actions.

[skeptic]

19 minutes ago, qwazse said:

I love that “primordial goodness” bit, until I butt up against the head of a scout who picks and chooses the points he wants to obey. The day after a critical incident, the kid literally rattled off the law, skipping “courteous, kind, obedient.”

I corrected him on his omissions and said, “You made vows. They define what a scout is. If someone is the opposite of 1/4 of those things, they are not a scout. This is a scout camp.”

He tried, poorly, and still had to be sent home.

After that, I dealt with self righteous older scouts who should know better but disregarded the same points of the Scout Law — justifying doing so on the shaky grounds that it was their last day of camp.

I’m becoming more generally comfortable with the notion of total depravity, and our need for something to stand as a metric showing how we don’t measure up.

That said, I still try to dig deep and take a play from Aquinas to find the underlying good motivating a soul’s bad actions.

Maybe if we could find a way to erase the negative impacts of far too many unwarranted celebrities we might make progress.  It is sort of like making movies and videos about the worst actors in society and seeing them hold ratings higher than most positive films.  Far too much focus on these peoplek, in all major theaters of society, but especially the entertainment and sports environments, and of course the political circus.

 

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

People who grew up in an environment that taught them that rules are imposed by force by others and breaking them is fine as long as you don't get caught are not in a good position to notice the causal connections between different kinds of thoughts, speech, and actions and what happens in the "outside" world. They are ignorant of how cause and effect create a chain of links that entraps them in circles of unnecessary pain and personal suffering in the end. Not sure if this was your scouts or not, @qwazse, but one way or the other they do not perceive clearly... Yet, one hopes.

Hopefully, being sent home helps that scout think through cause and effect better in the future.

The older scouts... Yikes. Last day of camp, so now we can do anything? No true discipline. Hopefully, they can look back at that (wrong) view later and connect the dots. Seeing clearly what is needed and doing it whether you feel like it or not requires some experience of both not seeing clearly and seeing but not doing, hopefully this is mud for a beautiful lotus to grow in.

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

After that, I dealt with self righteous older scouts who should know better but disregarded the same points of the Scout Law — justifying doing so on the shaky grounds that it was their last day of camp.

I once read from a Scoutmaster back in the 1930's say: "Finding an annoyance that trumps self-righteous satisfaction is a constant challenge for the Scoutmaster".

I have enough experience now to agree.

Barry

[qwazse]

5 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

People who grew up in an environment that taught them that rules are imposed by force by others and breaking them is fine as long as you don't get caught are not in a good position to notice the causal connections between different kinds of thoughts, speech, and actions and what happens in the "outside" world. They are ignorant of how cause and effect create a chain of links that entraps them in circles of unnecessary pain and personal suffering in the end. Not sure if this was your scouts or not, @qwazse, but one way or the other they do not perceive clearly... Yet, one hopes.

Hopefully, being sent home helps that scout think through cause and effect better in the future. …

Well, if by future you mean two days later at home, there’s room for pessimism. From what I witnessed of the scout-mom interaction, the parents have a tough row to hoe. 

5 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

… The older scouts... Yikes. Last day of camp, so now we can do anything? …

 

4 hours ago, Eagledad said:

I once read from a Scoutmaster back in the 1930's say: "Finding an annoyance that trumps self-righteous satisfaction is a constant challenge for the Scoutmaster". …

All we had left was the nuclear option of confining the whole troop to the campsite. I pushed that button for the sake of second- and third-year scouts. It’s a healthy lesson to know your actions impact others.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

I was thinking several years later, but if the row is really tough then maybe next lifetime 😂

But, Angulimala went from serial killer to enlightened in one lifetime so you never know 😄

I'm curious about the older scout situation, too - did being confined to camp result in the other scouts looking down on the undisciplined scouts? Childrearing practices vary by culture, so I don't know if it makes sense to expect this, but if that had happened in my troop the offending scout would probably have been socially demoted to errand boy/girl.

[qwazse]

23 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

… I'm curious about the older scout situation, too - did being confined to camp result in the other scouts looking down on the undisciplined scouts? Childrearing practices vary by culture, so I don't know if it makes sense to expect this, but if that had happened in my troop the offending scout would probably have been socially demoted to errand boy/girl.

I didn’t see any of that. I encouraged the scouts to make the evening enjoyable around our troop campfire, which is situated conveniently lakeside. They seem to have managed to do that without much grief. (I wasn’t present because there was a bunch of close-out stuff for me to do.)