(Note: I use AI to help me translate my stories from Japanese to English.)
Since childhood, we have been told to “do good things.”
But what is “good”?
Does the idea of good change over time?
Is good different for different people?
Is it different across cultures?
Is there such a thing as a universal good?
One Buddhist monk wrote that good and evil are created by human beings. If something makes people happy, we call it good.
Shinran, a Buddhist monk and the founder of Jodo Shinshu, said that he did not know what was good or evil because he was a human being, not a god.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” said William Shakespeare.
On the other hand, Kitaro Nishida, a Japanese philosopher, wrote that “to know ourselves” is good.
Some people think that making others smile is an act of goodness. This is simple, but I like it.
I looked up the word “good” in the Cambridge Dictionary. It means “morally right” or “based on religious principles.”
I think that what is considered good differs among people, cultures, and religions.
The concept of good also changes over time.
However, there seems to be some universal good that almost everyone agrees on.
I don’t fully understand what goodness is either, but I believe that being honest, helping those in need, and caring for nature are all acts of goodness.