I've read other people's posts about their own essential questions and I decided that I want to create a more focused one for the question "...and how should we live in [the world]?"
I want to know, basically, how we should live in relation to other people.
I'm not talking about protecting the environment or anything else, I'm strictly talking about something like "how should we act towards the guy standing next to me on the bus?".
I thought of this because some of us stumbled onto the subject of racism and such. But there are a lot of situations where the idea of your fellow man coming into play. If you're on a rise of success, is it allowable to sacrifice some friendships or relationships to reach the top? Buddhist philosophy tells us that we can only find happiness in helping others, yet I'm sure some people would disagree - they would say to acheive true happiness, something has to give.
In this fast-paced world of cell phones and constant progress, it seems that we're a bit too caught up in our own selves to care about others sometimes. Think of the last time you really helped a stranger. I'm talking about direct help, not as in canned-food-drive sort of help.
It's hard, right?
What's the thing that keeps us from jumping up and getting napkins for the unfortunate person who spills their coffee? If your best friend did that, you'd obviously help, yet at the Starbucks not many people look up from their newspapers and iPods. Isn't it of human nature to want to help others? And it's not like we're being territorial here - there's no explicit aggression to the other people at Starbucks.
Any ideas as to why?
I want to know, basically, how we should live in relation to other people.
I'm not talking about protecting the environment or anything else, I'm strictly talking about something like "how should we act towards the guy standing next to me on the bus?".
I thought of this because some of us stumbled onto the subject of racism and such. But there are a lot of situations where the idea of your fellow man coming into play. If you're on a rise of success, is it allowable to sacrifice some friendships or relationships to reach the top? Buddhist philosophy tells us that we can only find happiness in helping others, yet I'm sure some people would disagree - they would say to acheive true happiness, something has to give.
In this fast-paced world of cell phones and constant progress, it seems that we're a bit too caught up in our own selves to care about others sometimes. Think of the last time you really helped a stranger. I'm talking about direct help, not as in canned-food-drive sort of help.
It's hard, right?
What's the thing that keeps us from jumping up and getting napkins for the unfortunate person who spills their coffee? If your best friend did that, you'd obviously help, yet at the Starbucks not many people look up from their newspapers and iPods. Isn't it of human nature to want to help others? And it's not like we're being territorial here - there's no explicit aggression to the other people at Starbucks.
Any ideas as to why?
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