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“At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is above all that is sacred in every human being.”¹

Simone Weil

Weil observes; that which is pure truth is pure good.
There is an element of the nature of truth that is inconceivable and it leaves a dread in the place of knowing that hinders our interaction with it.
What this means for goodness and relating to the world is dire. To reject interaction with that which is sacred in me; to regard it a nothingness is to believe there is nothing in the people that I speak to, the food that nourishes me and the heat in the sunlight that sustains me. A belief that leaves all goodness by the wayside and leaves interaction shrouded in reasonable ill-will and desecration. Therein lies an obligation to renunciate falsehood and I find solace in this simple guide that unveils infinity.

In the nature of falsehood is allure and trickery. With the promise to ease suffering, caused by afflictive feelings, with a veil and it is an easy way and we take this ease as a sign of entitlement to it. We believe we can still access truth by reason with less suffering and less effort and this desire speaks to the sacred in quiet vulnerability without revealing anything at all. The nature of falsehood is discursive; that is, made by the will of man, by force; meaning into word. We feel the power of words and it is the “power of illusion and error.”² However, “there are certain words which posses in themselves, when properly used, a virtue which illuminates and lifts up towards the good.”³
Truth, justice and love are such words and “what they express is beyond our conception.”

“This mind bhikkhus is luminous but it is clouded by visiting defilements.”⁴

Buddha

The mind is luminous in its inconceivable interaction with goodness; this is a simplicity of just knowing, wherein there is no problem. Defilements appear; unwholesome states of mind, afflictive emotions and when they do, whether or not you take them to the self and claim them as who you are; reasoning that I am selfish, I am angry, I am sad, is a matter of skill. To be with with these emotions in a skillful way is freedom.

“It is not fault which constitutes mortal sin, but the degree of light in the soul when the fault, whatever it may be, is accomplished.”⁵

Everyone feels this impersonal goodness and we can all feel the distance between I and it. Afflictive emotions are arising, they are arising because of conditions and they are arising in all of us and they just are. We must be familiar with what is; wholesome and unwholesome and we must build skills of discernment between them so that we can make wise choices.

“Purity is the power to contemplate defilement.”⁶

Simone Weil

1. Weil, S. and Miles, S. (2005). Simone Weil : an anthology. London: Penguin. ↩︎
2. Weil, S. and Miles, S. (2005). Simone Weil : an anthology. London: Penguin. ↩︎
3. Weil, S. and Miles, S. (2005). Simone Weil : an anthology. London: Penguin. ↩︎
4. Goldstein, J. (n.d.). Transforming Negative Emotions. [Voice recording] Available at: https://www.wakingup.com/ [Accessed 20 Sep. 2023]. ↩︎
5. Weil, S. and Miles, S. (2005). Simone Weil : an anthology. London: Penguin. ↩︎
6. Weil, S. and Miles, S. (2005). Simone Weil : an anthology. London: Penguin. ↩︎