Thank you for the response, it’s afforded me a lot of clarification.
Great way to put it.
Yeah, I’m realizing what it would take to explain where the confusion was coming from in regards to this and it would lead to a completely different topic altogether.
Yes I agree. What tends to fly under the radar are all those minor feelings of upsetness that can be managed and overlooked by the arbiter. Instances of honest mistakes which lead to harm are one thing, but those cases are few-and-far between (hard to remember any!). At the center of the majority of memories of being harmful is how I felt - no matter how it was managed or rationalized, or how beautiful or righteous it may have seemed.
The method and its facilitatory practice are so effective because it puts each and every blip of malice and sorrow on the radar such that they can no longer be ignored. And calibrating oneself towards the absence of malice and sorrow is an excellent way to avoid the pitfalls of personally determining what happiness and harmlessness is (i.e. based on my pre-existing standards rooted in the instinctual passions and accompanying morals).
Cheers, it’s a wonderful journey.