mettafuture wrote:Individual wrote:All the friggin' time fortunately and unfortunately -- although not by those names.
Some more than others.
To stay in-tune with the paramitas, I'll occasionally ask myself...
- Am I being generous?
- Am I being virtuous?
- Is there something unneeded in my life that can be renounced?
- Am I being wise in my choices and thoughts?
- Am I putting in enough energy and effort?
- Am I being patient?
- Am I being honest?
- Am I determined?
- Am I treating others with loving-kindness?
- Are my thoughts even and unbiased?
All of those things, really? That's a lot. With me, it's more of a general sense of, "Am I doing the right thing?" A guilt about my morality that peaks right after I wake up and right before I go to bed.
And in specific situations, too, I dwell on whether I'm being considerate to others.
Immediately after yelling or getting into an argument, I tend to self-reflect on why what I did probably wasn't necessary, but it's not like you can scream at somebody and apologize 5 seconds later, because that seems a bit crazy, huh?
I used to think about how great it would be, every night before going to sleep (as a bit of a nightly ritual) if everybody in the world was happy. I still do this sometimes, but I do it spontaneously when I feel particularly moved, because I would only rather do it sincerely, and I honestly don't feel Buddha-like compassion all the time, because honestly quite a lot of the time I don't really care about others' happiness.