Quotes About Selflessness

Unwise selfish people think only of themselves, and the result is confusion and pain. Wise selfish people know that the best thing they can do for themselves is to be there for others. As a result, they experience joy.

Bodhichitta exists on two levels. First there is unconditional bodhichitta, an immediate experience that is refreshingly free of concept, opinion, and our usual all-caught-upness.

The third noble truth says that suffering ceases when we let go of trying to maintain the huge ME at any cost.

Shantideva said that since all sentient beings suffer from strong, conflicting emotions, and all sentient beings get what they don't want and can't hold on to what they do want, and all sentient beings have physical distress, why am I making such a big deal about just me? Since we're all in this together, why am I making such a big deal about myself?

Everywhere we go, we see the misery that comes from buying into the eight worldly dharmas. It's also pretty obvious that people need help and that there's no way to benefit anybody unless we start with ourselves.

the best way to serve ourselves is to love and care for others.

Teachers and helpers of all kinds will be of limited use if they are doing their work to build up their own egos. In fact, setting out to help others is a very quick way to pop the bubble of ego.

The word bodhisattva refers to those who have committed themselves to the path of compassion.

There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter.

Keep your eye on the task, not on yourself. The task matters, and you are a servant.

Love suffers far more for the pains of the beloved than for its own pains.

But all true effort to help begins with self-humiliation: the helper must first humble himself under him he would help, and therewith must understand that to help does not mean to be a sovereign but to be a servant, that to help does not mean to be ambitious but to be patient, that to help means to endure for the time being the imputation that one is in the wrong and does not understand what the other understands.

Love is supposed to bring us out of the dark prison of the "my will be done" ego into the joys of "thy will be done", both horizontally and vertically, toward both the human and the divine Other.

If doing the most you can for others means that you are also flourishing, then that is the best possible outcome for everyone.

We need to get over our reluctance to speak openly about the good we do. Silent giving will not change a culture that deems it sensible to spend all your money on yourself and your family, rather than to help those in greater need—even though helping others is likely to bring more fulfillment in the long run.

We do not have to make self-sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.

This revised edition is also for all of you who have changed your lives in order to bring Animal Liberation closer. You have made it possible to believe that the power of ethical reasoning can prevail over the self-interest of our species.

Ben West points out that even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that people believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfillment that comes from knowing you are helping to make the world a better place.

Charity begins at home, the saying goes, and for many people, charity also stops at home, or not very far from it.

Long ago I left heroics to the heroes

What you do for yourself, you're doing for others, and what you do for others, you're doing for yourself.

NBA is not exactly the friendliest environment for teaching selflessness. Even though the game itself is a five-person sport, the culture surrounding it celebrates egoistic behavior and stresses individual achievement over team bonding.

triangle offense, that aligned perfectly with the values of selflessness and mindful awareness I'd been studying in Zen Buddhism.

Ruth said, Love isn't just wanting another person the way you want to own an object you see in a store. That's just desire. You want to have it around, take it home and set it up somewhere in the apartment like a lamp. Love is-she paused, reflecting-like a father saving his children from a burning house, getting them out and denying himself. When you love you cease to live for yourself; you live for another person.