Altruism, Compassion, Love

There is no doubt that altruism, compassion, and love are the best attitudes required for the well-being of all the sentient. However, many times, we get blinded by self-interest and materialism, and we tend to forget about the attitudes. And what we get out of the illusion of the Self and the material world is ultimately suffering, negative emotions such as pride, hatred, dissatisfaction, jealousy, etc. All our negative feelings come from our ignorance - blinded viewpoints, selfish acts, temporal pleasures, and lack of wisdom.

As a solution, the book, The Monk and the Philosopher written by Jean-Francois Revel and Matthieu Ricard, shows why material-driven, self-centered minds should consider Buddhist teaching as necessary and essential to cope with all the negative and distressful situations created by human beings.

The book is basically a dialogue between a father as a western philosopher and his son who had given up his occupation as a biologist and became a monk. They talk about how western societies are built upon and why Buddhist teaching has drawn attention from the west. The message from the book is that focusing mainly on the material world and the self has resulted in the feeling of void and suffering from negative feelings. The bottom line is that in order to reduce mental sufferings we have to know the ultimate nature of the mind and the phenomenal world and promote contemplative experience.

The monk said, “whether the earth is round or flat, it doesn’t make a great deal of difference to the meaning of existence.” Indeed, though science helps us acquire knowledge about the material world, it doesn’t really help us free from negative emotions. We have to promote metaphysical experience that can be called spiritual, contemplative, or transcendental. In this way, we stay aware of the ultimate nature of existence and the importance of inner transformation leading to altruism, compassion, and love.