Wednesday, February 25, 2015

SELFLESSNESS

You say that you would be happier not being yourself, just being nothing.  But how would you do that, exactly?  Who is it that is trying to be nothing?  In Buddhism this is called striving to not strive. 
 
Zen says just stop.  Don’t make not being yourself a process.  Don’t give it to the brain to figure out.  Don’t give it to the egoic self, especially, as it will fight you tooth and nail, will fight you to the death, because it does not want to die.

Just stop, Zen says.  Do something else, be something else.  Don’t try to be nothing, though, because nothing is a something. 
 
Tibetan Buddhists practice altruism, as a solution.  Altruism is selflessness, which, in the view of the Buddhists, benefits them as much, if not more, than those they help.

This is why the renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher Matthieu Ricard, to name one, calls himself the happiest man in the world, and why the Dalai Lama is always smiling.

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