Kindness Is Selfish: The Dalai Lama

Kindness is Selfish The Dalai Lama has said "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." It has been my experience that the most consistent, and reliable path to happiness is to show others kindness. When the world becomes too much to bear, and the trials of life seem insurmountable, an act of kindness can revitalize the spirit. To give kindness unconditionally is not only a way to bring light and joy into the life of someone else, it also brings light into the life of the giver. To have a heart full of kindness for others is impossible without first having an endless amount of kindness and forgiveness for yourself, because you cannot give something you do not have. It is the authors humble belief that we all

If having love for our fellow humans is one of the hardest things we can do, the most difficult task would have to be to love ourselves unconditionally. When we find faults in ourselves, it becomes possible to see those flaws in other people. When we can't forgive our own transgressions, we lose our ability to forgive others. If we cannot see ourselves with kind eyes, we cannot bring true kindness into the world. The phrase "my cup runneth over" comes to my mind. Without a wellspring of love in our own hearts, it becomes easy to "dry out" so to speak when we find ourselves in situations of stress and pain. In this way we can become a source of love for the world, by being the most important source of love for ourselves. Happiness is selfish, not because we do it to make ourselves feel better (even though it does) it is selfish because when we show compassion, forgiveness and kindness to others we are also showing it to ourselves. Being kind and compassionate is something that brings joy into the hearts of those who receive it, and those who give it. The Buddha once said ""Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." I believe that when we accept ourselves, it becomes possible to accept others. Happiness can be selfish because when we interact with others, we are also addressing the way we interact with our own ego's, or our ideas about who we are. Sharing kindness and love unconditionally brings us all closer to understanding the universal truth that we are all