Karma - Selfish?

if the only reason you are nice to people, is because you think your god is going to punish you if your not, then you are not really being nice to people. and in your own mind you will know this, no matter how others percieve you.

and in buddhism if the only reason you show compassion, is so you can escape the cycle of rebirth, or have a better rebirth, then this isnt showing true compasion, and deep in your own mind, you will know this, no matter how others talk or percieve your seemingly noble actions.

you love someone, because you love them. its a very deep and powerful emotion. if there are extra conditions to this, then it is not love.

if you are compassionate to someone, it is beccause you are compassionate. you cant hold conditions to it. or add on, because this will get me further along.

getting a better rebirth, or escaping samsara, are simply the outcomes of living a pure, compasionate life, full of love for your fellow living being and understanding the nature of the mind. it should not really be looked at like a rpg game, if i show this much love, ill ding and get to the next level. because then even before you attempt to be kind, or thoughtful, or compassionate, your already thinking how many good karama points you will get.

the second part of the question, about looking after yourself first is a huge misconception among readers of buddhism. what it basically means, is that we are all ego based, duality obsessed beings. so how can anyone really help another person, if there view on reality is as tainted as the person they are trying to help. so its best to practice your meditation, follow the teaching of the buddha, so you can be as clear minded, and unconditioned as posible, while helping your fellow man. it would be like a person still in the matrix who had no idea of the REAL world, telling neo how the world is and advising him on how he should live his life. and the person who follows the path, who meditates to calm their mind, and understand emotions, especially strong ones like hatred, and lust, and resentment, would be like morpheus.

they are experiencing existance on another level, they can see how emotions can guide us and sometimes take our minds over with out us knowing. they themselves might not be enlightened, but they try to live the dharma, they meditate to calm themselves, and they are aware of how the mind works.

i hope this helps


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Nice post odinreln, thanks.

The more one practices to cultivate a calm mind, the more one becomes oneself and the more one goes beyond dual concepts like selfishness and unselfishness, good karma and bad karma, etc. Once one is truly oneself one can neither be called selfish nor compassionate. Just like the sun which causes both skin cancer and makes our food grow - we become who we are and move beyond worry.

By MT2 - I have to ask though, MeditationMom, the way you put it, it sounds nearly like you're saying (rf to the Sun cancer/food growth) that we have our negative sides along with our positive sides but if we have a pure mind we must go on with our lives and accept that others will, in a sense, have to put up with us as we we are regardless?

Whichever way you are, Hitler or Buddha, people either put up with you, or they don't. They do have the freedom to choose. Whether you are all negative, half negative/half positive, or all positive - people decide for their own reasons whether to put up with you or not.

Even if we were all positive (which we may or not may not achieve in a lifetime) - but lets imagine we were to rise to the level of Buddha or Jesus - as close to "all positive" as we can imagine - this still will hurt people. Men abandoned their wives and children to follow these teachers, religions sprung up that caused millions of deaths, etc, etc. So there is no reason to try to become "all positive" out of compassion for others. Just like there is no reason to try to become "all positive" for oneself if it requires a ton of self denial and sacrifice.

To become "all positive", and infinitely compassionate, is a simple byproduct of total relaxation. Total relaxation means relaxing all fears and all desires, not just in meditation, but in everyday life with all its responsibilities.

You misunderstand me, Four-Too. The only way to stand up to injustice and all kinds of things in the world that are wrong, and to do so effectively, is in a totally relaxed and fearless way, and without any personal desires. Just like people like Jesus.

I did not say to "not bother" so one can enjoy "an easy life". I said - don't have a reason. Reasons will betray you. Wars always have reasons, peace doesn't need a reason.

by odinleln - considering the forum we're discussing in, I'm going to add, people like Siddhartha Gautama.

Yes, of course. To me Jesus and Buddha are the same. Pure compassion.

I thought I'd add a bit to what odinreln said about karma and the dualistic view of self. This maybe relates also to what MeditationMom said about going beyond dualistic concepts.

Selfish = thinking of oneself. As long as we see ourselves as a separate self and the world as something out there, we will always be thinking about ourselves and all our activities will have some bit of selfishness about them. Karma gives rise to the way we perceive ourselves and our world: due to the way we perceived and acted in the past, our current perceptions arise as a result and then we have a tendency to act habitually, as we did before, in a self-centred way. Thus we lay down the seeds of future perceptions and actions. Karma is the summation of this dualistic, ego based view of a self and other. Every moment that we perceive and act in a dualistic way we are experiencing old karma and creating new karma reinforcing the view of self and other.

From the Mahayana viewpoint, our fundamental buddha-nature is pure infinite wisdom and compassion but this has been obscured due to our karma. This is called ignorance. If we let go of the false duality of self and other, we find this compassionate nature already present. Letting go requires that we actively work on our perceptions and actions to slowly overcome the grasping at a self. Meditation and positive actions done with good motivation are the tools to loosen the the false dualistic view. When self-centredness has been sufficiently weakened, then our perception is completely transformed and the wisdom and compassion of our true nature naturally arise. We would then be completely free of self-centredness and all our thoughts and actions would be solely focused on the benefit of all sentient beings.

Our motivation in carrying out actions is said to be key to the action being truly positive. If the motivation is solely out of concern for the benefit of others then this is a very positive action. If one also has the view of the illusoriness of self, other and activity then it becomes an infinitely positive action. However, as long as we perceive ourselves as separate we need also to care for ourselves since we could regret an action which benefits others while hurting ourselves. The positivity of the action could be reduced or destroyed through regretting it.

Meditation helps us to let go of grasping so that then we can naturally act positively without the grasping and our actions become truely beneficial for all beings. As grasping reduces, the thoughts of "I'm doing this for myself" or "I'm doing this for them" reduce while the positivity increases.