Introduction: Making the Ascent
One of the most common complaints made against the media today is that the reporting of bad news—from bloody civil wars across the globe to the litany of heinous crimes taking place in our own back yard—seems to dwarf the coverage of good news. But if one is persistent, it is still possible to find stories that stir our hearts to hope, even though such stories may be buried in the back sections of our newspapers or slipped in between the sound bites on the evening news. Take, for instance, the woman who drives a twenty year-old mobile home into the streets of East Cleveland, braving the frequent sound of gunfire in order to get young people to talk about their anger and their dreams. Or the factory owner whose plant burned to the ground, but who insisted on continuing to pay his workers, including a promised Christmas bonus, while the process of rebuilding began. Or the retired postal worker who, since the mid-1970s, has given away nearly $100,000 to dozens of people, while he and his wife have continued to live in the poorest of neighborhoods.
Who are these people and what is it that motivates them to undertake such heroic deeds? In the case of the three individuals mentioned above, and of many other local heroes (most of whose actions never make it into the news), the answer is the same: they are guided by moral principles and imperatives that are thousands of years old. If you asked them directly about the sources of their morality, they might become shy—no one wants to sound pompous or smug. But their answers remain the same: the words of ancient sages, prophets, and philosophers have the enduring power to summon us to a higher standard of behavior, to acts of generosity and self-sacrifice and compassion.
As concern about the fraying of our social fabric continues to mount, many of us are wondering what happened to the moral values that seem to be conspicuously absent from our lives. It isn’t an easy subject to discuss; when we talk about morality we tend to become awkward and self-conscious. At some point in our history, morality got a bad name, becoming associated with stuck-up prigs known as the Victorians, or the picture-perfect 1950s family headed by Ozzie and Harriet. Besides, we have been told for decades that old-fashioned morality was hopelessly out of date. In its place arose a philosophy of relativism, which says that morality is what each individual creates for himself. The most extreme formulation of relativism, of course, is the slogan: “Do it if it feels good!” But the problem with relativism is that we are becoming sick of the “morality” of terrorists, drug lords, white-collar criminals, racists, and their ilk.
While most people today are willing to concede that previous generations erred on the side of a dry, conventional morality, there is a widespread feeling that we have moved too far in the opposite direction, that we have lost our bearings and desperately need some form of moral wisdom by which to navigate through the complex waters of our lives. Thus it is no longer taboo to speak of words like virtue, character, and goodness. At the same time there is tremendous ignorance about the sources of moral vision—the result of an educational system that scorned the wisdom of the past.
A wise man once said: “To get away from old things passing themselves off as tradition it is necessary to go back to the farthest past—which will reveal itself to be the nearest present.” In other words, by going back to the sources of the great moral traditions, we can rediscover just how fresh and relevant they are for our own time. That, at any rate, is the premise of this book. We have gone back to the farthest past to cull quotations from the original texts—scriptures, treatises, and practical guides to behavior—and we have searched the nearest present to find stories about people who continue to be inspired by traditional values.
Despite the many significant differences between them, the ancient traditions, from Greek philosophy to the major religions, all agreed that morality was objective, that the idea of good and evil was something firmly rooted in human nature itself. Central to each of these traditions was something the Chinese called the Tao, which might be translated as the Way, or the Road. In order to stay on the Way, one was required to heed the compass, or set of moral principles, that kept us from losing our bearings in the fog and landing in ditches and quagmires.
Another universal idea was that the moral path required discipline and self-sacrifice. Doing the right thing is seldom the easiest or most natural thing for us. But just as we know that the pain of physical exercise is a necessary means to the end of health and good conditioning, so the moral exercises were seen as means to a state of inner peace and contentment. Again and again the ancient traditions promise that if you serve the needs others you will find that you have received something valuable in return. The Way might lead up steep mountain paths, but the views from the top are exhilarating.
The modern feeling that morality is always about repression or merely negative values was completely alien to the great moral traditions. While it is true that many of the commandments were couched in the form of “Thou shalt nots,” it must be remembered that the positive side of these commandments was their call to greater love. It has been remarked that if you substitute the words “Love does not” for “Thou shalt not,” the Ten Commandments can be seen in a new light. Love does not kill. Love does not steal. Love does not bear false witness.
Nonetheless, it must be said that if traditional morality is based on the radiance of love and goodness, it can also seem sharp-edged and challenging to our contemporary sensibilities. The moral precepts from Mount Sinai and Galilee and Mecca are not based on notions like “self-esteem” and nurturing the “child within”; nor do they foist responsibility for wrongdoing onto society or the traumas of youth. The commandments are not fleeting “random acts of kindness” that can be practiced in one’s spare time, but bracing calls to a lifetime commitment. Above all, the ancients knew that the moral life was grounded in the dozens of ordinary daily actions we take—that the little things in the end add up to big things. In the end, when we reach the mountain top, we will have formed our character, our soul, and know that our lives have meant something.
In compiling this volume, we decided that a book divided into sections according to abstract ideas like “honesty” or “courage” would have little bearing on the way we actually lead our lives. Instead, we have arranged the material in sections according to the major phases of human life, from childhood and family life through marriage, work, education, and on to death and posterity. Nearly all of our moral decisions are made in specific, concrete circumstances—in our bedrooms, classrooms, and offices. These are the stages through which we all must pass.
It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that this book makes no pretension to being a comprehensive listing of moral ideas and precepts. We have kept to the large central ideas of each moral tradition, rather than delving into the more specific differences between traditions.
Each section begins with a brief introduction, and then moves into a series of quotations. The quotes include the sayings from the sources of moral thought—the scriptures, philosophical texts, and other founding documents. We have endeavored to select material from all of the world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and several strands of the Native American experience. There are also many quotations—from traditional sayings to the wisdom of the greatest poets and thinkers—that extend and develop the original tradition over the centuries.
Some readers may be inclined to wonder why so many of the quotations come from religious sources. The answer is simple: throughout most of human history, morality has emerged out of a religious matrix. Even the Greek philosophers developed their moral ideas through a dialogue with the myths of the Olympian gods. For better or worse, the idea that morality can be constructed from scratch out of the human mind alone is a very recent notion.
Finally, each section concludes with a story or two from the present, or the recent past, which illustrates the way the moral traditions continue to inspire people today. All of the stories grow out of the life experiences of the many individuals who contributed them. The contributors come from varied backgrounds and many walks of life. Many of these individuals responded to the call for stories we placed on dozens of sites on the Internet. Their generous response to that call amazed and gratified us. We have changed names to protect the privacy of the storytellers.
We hope the result is a rich trove of wisdom, information, and inspiration—all geared to the challenges we face in our daily lives.