Is Selflessness possible?

As quoted by a friend,

"Aren't there acts of love and empathy, even some great acts, that are driven by ego? not completely, but by a desire to help because of how it makes someone feel"


"There are no selfless acts since every act has a positive feeling for the self, regardless if we let it drive our decision making consciously, subconsciously its postivie reinforcement."


I am not sure how to respond to this . . . I wonder, is this true?

 

I think it is true. I find altruism to be a rush.

 

"We" would probably say that since we are all selfish there is no way to do a selfless act. But even selfishness isn't really selfishness, for few are truly selfish, although it may seem so. If we were truly selfish, then we would first be concerned with our own welfare, our own happiness. But since we gauage our happiness according to our others (our lovers, wives and husbands), it is not truly being independent, our love is conditional, it is dependent upon another.

In the same way, if you do an act with the idea that you are doing a good act, that very thought will pollute it. But when you do an act because it has to be done, because it is the right thing to do, then one does not reflect upon oneself doing the act. Then the act is selfless.

So, let's say that you are walking across the street. You see that a car has broken down part of the way out of the parking lot. You see that oncoming cars may hit the stalled car. You help the driver push the car back into the parking lot.

It isn't a matter of wanting to do good, it is a matter of it having to be done lest there be an accident. Your concern is others, not oneself. That is a selfless act (unless you rationalise that your doing good will gain you a debit payment on your karma. Then the act is perverted.)

If you see a starving person, if you look into their eyes and emphasis with that person and you just happen to have a sandwhich on you, if you give it to them it is a selfless act. If you think about doing the act, it is selfish; ("if we let it drive our decision making consciously") If you act without thinking, without rationalisation, it is selfless.

It's a matter of awareness. If one is aware of oneself, or unaware of oneself, as the case may be, it is not selfless. If one is only aware of the other, it is a selfless act.

 

Why do you ask?

 

Only if you see all things as one with yourself can you act without making a difference between self and other. And after all, where is the exact division between oneself and other? I often am thinking that the circumstance that brings beings together through billions of years of time and space can not be anything other than the fact that oneself is as much a set of circumstances as anything else we have done or identify with. Given that one fits like a lock and key into those circumstances one asks, "Who is the created, and who the creator of all this?" And I can only posit oneness beyond my knowledge, that is, only one mind must hold this whole existance together. So to even speak of self and other is sort of foolish.

So then, what one might call selfless action where there's only one mind and different aspects would be mere mental training.

Except that a rule of life called karma holds sway.

Which is why there's the Dharma.

 

Don't enlightened people normally equate selfishness with ignorance of your true self?

 

It may be foolish but Duality may be all that we are aquainted with. Most have not realised what you have, the Oneness of All. They can only relate in intellectual, mental, terms, not in the existential terms of which you allude.

 

Wondering won't help; you'll have to find out for yourself.

If one does an act, after the fact it is dead. The act does not define you, how others interpret the act, their judgement, is what we are fearful of. So by continuously thinking on a past act we keep it alive in our minds, though the act is past and dead. It is this replaying of our doing an act through which the ego makes us feel superior, that makes us think that we did good or evil. If we would just recognise that the act is now dead, then we would also recognise that there is no reason to keep thinking on it (not "about" it.)

As far as love and ego goes, when one is in love there is no ego. So to say that one does an act of love through the ego may be false. At best one can say that one does what needs to be done. But an act of love done through the mind is just rationalisation, it is not authentic; it is like lust. A selfless act probably is done listening to the heart, not the mind, it is emotional, not mental.

 

If selfishness is the norm, and un-enlightenment is the norm, how could we know? The words they speak from the mountain tops may only sound like thunderings in our valleys.

One would have to have had some satori to be able to relate, to be able to try to understand what they are saying. So "selflessness" may just be an empty idea in our minds. Being of the mind it could be of the ego. When that usually happens we take pride in our spirituality, we think we are superior; the mind has tricked us once again.

If we put too much emphasis on being selfless, we go to the opposite of our selfish nature after recognising that we are selfish; we may go too far and make selflessness a goal, instead of recognising that it is something which has to bubble up from our consciousness through awareness, through emotion.

That is a very poorly worded thought. What I am saying is that being selfish and trying to be selfless may only be mental exercises. If they remain mental exercises then it is a waste, it is not existential. To act with forethought, to thereby reflect back on the act as being selfless, is disengenious, we are lying to ourselves.

The only criteria one should employ is whether or not an act was done with awareness. If we act without awareness, then we are said to be ignorant. It is our unawareness of our selfishness that is the problem. One can be selfish 'with awareness,' but then it is not selfishness, it is awareness in action. Then the act is neither selfish nor selfless, it just is.

 

I had thoughts of this a few week previous on a head trip I took...
I realized I couldn`t come up with a deed I did just because...
This is the way I try to see it... it`s almost like spiritual mathematics
every deed has a reward (or consequence)
Those that commit the deed to receive a worldy good (or even the bubble of altruism) are obtaining no good karma off the deed for it`s a canceled transaction 1 for 1. To actually send good karma one`s way one must be comepletely selfless awarefully and choose to complete this deed not for the good karma or a swap, just because they know it is the right thing to do. It`s hard I think, the minute i try and do something good I took pride in it. Pride leads to ego (uncontrolled) anyways for me. That`s just my view it may be different for you...

 

The key to doing selfless acts is to realize that there's no need to do them at all for yourself and that therefore you simply must be doing them for others.

Parents understand this just fine. At some point they no longer are making money or working for their own rewards any longer. Moreover, for most parents, at some point their kids are totally ungrateful anyway, and they leave home as rebels and so no actual pay off in terms of ones children is ever truely found. So having kids is a selfless endeavor even though people think that the experience is its own reward.

All things are their own reward, so as things are one the reward of feeling good comes naturally from doing good.

Even more so if one has no real need to do them. And merely acts because they can.

This is the real basis of the Buddhist Mahayana path. The understanding of shunyata tells one that no amount of things will ever equal anything. All things are empty at their essence. For this reason no practice ever accomplishes anything beyond that shunyata. So therefore all practices are done for others. They simply cannot be done for that level of mind which itself is unchanging emptiness and pure awareness. So they are done for others.

One doesn't have to give up anything. There is in actuality no ego, there is only the egoless pure awareness ever, and nothing else. All things already are done for others, so simply let them be done for others without grasping after the result.

 

A selfless act is done to fulfill Dharma's invitation, that is all. One may certainly do a selfless act by being fully conscious, applying onesself entirely and experiencing great joy in the moment, as long as it is done without attachment, expectation, or desire for any specific personal reward.

Trust the universe, realize there is nothing to want, be compassionate with all life and everything you do will be selfless. And always, be open to all good things.

Peace and Love

 

I tell my ego this all the time, it fights back. hehehehe, does yours?
Oh yeah it's not there, god damn it's trying to trick me again...

What a cosmic joke, my friend... the best thing we can do is laugh at it, the ego is one of the biggest jokes the pure awareness ever came up with.

With eternal compassion of course!

 

This thread relates to the ideas that Martin Luther advocated. He said that good deeds were not really done for the right reasons. that is why he came up with the idea that salvation is available by "faith alone". I am not Christian, but i thought that this was an interesting paralell.

Jim

 

Martin Luther also suggested that we do the christian thing and burn down the jewish houses of worships... not a really good moral example if you ask me, but who am to judge?

 

"That'll be a dispute till the end of time, whether it is better to do the right thing for the wrong reason or the wrong thing for the right reason."
-Mrs. Brown
-National Velvet (movie)

 

Quote Chodpa:
So therefore all practices are done for others. They simply cannot be done for that level of mind which itself is unchanging emptiness and pure awareness. So they are done for others.

Ur post is interesting, i like it. What u mean with what i quoted is funny. It shows how life beautiful is: the "up" lives for the "down", the "down" lives for the "up", now, later and forever.


But actually I am not sure this truth you show means that practices are done for others. I mean,on one hand, it could yes, oneself keeps working and accomplishing great things and practices for others. But on an other hand, it could be... not the case. Umm, u get something Chodpa?
Well, it's like you point a goal for everything, which is useless
(is it a goal to create goal then )

There is no sense in what we experience, we don't have to be so or so for, or (=) because, others...

The interconnection of everything is just so amazingly... beautiful?

Peace

 

Sorry to sound cynical but from an evolutionary perspective the reward is obvious: investing in the care of one's children improves the chances that they will survive and transmit the parent's genes. Selection occurs not at the level of the individual but at the level of the gene.

 

So this is the exact sense in which I meant what I said. Since everything is so interconnected and essentially empty of specific content therefore all things are accomplished for all beings through all ones actions. One is themself the sense offering to the 6 lokas and the six loka's beings are fulfilled in oneself. Even if one just sits in meditation and contacts noone, the interdependence of all things is so great that one still influences others.

 

As a specific example, one weekend I went out walking and picking up garbage. That weekend also President Bush announced his desire that we all make America a cleaner place. There was an interdependence between my small actions and the larger field of action.

In my action was no hope of reward even since there would be just as much litter the next week again. I acted with no regard for self or acomplishment. That mere action for its own beneficial sake of all things made a large wave in the human psyche. Or was in tune with that wave.

At any rate, things can be seen to be casual or spontaneously manifesting in all array. In the latter view all that one is or does is the garnishing of basic space and so again all that one is and does is for the benefit of existance itself.

Often a simple change in mindset can take the pressure to acheive some ideal of perfection and substitute the contentment of mere existance which then is a more simple mental place to be than striving for some ideal which is bound to change when the conditions supporting it change.

Ultimately though in Buddhism one is engaging in meditation and beneficial actions so as to awaken all beings and not just oneself, in the selfsame way that Buddha was convinced by Brahma to teach sentient beings and not just pass into nirvana. By remaining in existance even after one has experienced samadhi is to benefit others. Ones actions become of benefit especially when one is filled with the active wisdom which cuts through materialism to see the clear light void within all .