Compassion

Am I incapable of caring for people? I feel like so many people in my life have assisted me even though they don't really need to. I, in return, rarely do anything for them. I wish I could develop the capacity to put other people before me. Emily said you don't develop that kind of emotion until you are truly in love or having a kid. This made me think, how amazing a mother's love is. It's so unconditioned. I wish I could love my fellow human beings like that. Got to learn giving and taking.

If craving is the source of sufferings, then logically, learning how to give will undo the cause. If a person can be truly compassionate, then he truly realizes what it means by "no self."

I don't really understand, but what is it about human nature that we cannot learn contentment, but desiring more and more, like power, money, and attention? Why do we take the sickly pleasures in other peoples' failures? Why do we sometimes involve in gossips and divisive talks that bring people apart? And how can we be so indifferent to other peoples' sufferings?

Fundamental Questions

1. How do we know what is right to do and what is wrong to do? If it's really like what Nagarjuna said, that reality is relative, then how do we define a good action. If a good action is to make a person feel happy, then what is this happiness? And why does happiness matter, if after all, everything is empty?

2. If, as Nagarjuna said, that everything is relative and has no independent, fixed nature, then how does cause and effect work? If a cause necessitates the effect, then apparently there's an inherent and fixed character about cause. Is Nagarjuna saying there's no cause and effect relationship after all? If so, is he denying the fundamental principle (Karma) of his religion?

3. The nature of mind. If our current minds evolve from our minds yesterday, and the ones yesterday from the day before yesterday, the day before yesterday from last week, which is from last month, last year, all the way back to the time when we were still in our mothers' wombs, then imagine the moment when the new life first appears, when the egg and sperm first met. Where does that very first conscious come from? If from somewhere else, how come we cannot remember what happened before we entered our current bodies?

Examination of Causality

There absolutely are no things, nowhere and none, that arise anew, neither out of themselves, nor out of non-self, nor out of both, nor at random (Nagarjuna, Treatise on the Middle Doctrine).