Seeking happiness selfishly is the best way there is to make yourself, or anyone else, unhappy.

Some people might think that the smartest way to guarantee their own well-being is to isolate themselves from others and to work hard at their own happiness, without consideration for other people.

They probably assume that if everybody does that, we’ll all be happy.

But the result would be exactly the opposite: instead of being happy, they would be torn between hope and fear, make their own lives miserable and ruin the lives of the people around them as well.

In the end, just ‘looking out for number one’ is a losing proposition for everybody.

One of the fundamental reasons such an approach is doomed is that the world is not made up of independant entities endowed with intrinsic properties that make them by nature beautiful or ugly, friends or enemies.

Things and beings are essentially interdependant and in a constant state of transformation.

The very elements that compose them only exist in relationship to each other.

The self-centered approach of the ego continually runs afoul of this reality and only suceeds in creating frustration.

Altruistic love, according to Buddhism, is the wish that others be happy, an attitude that consists of wishing others to be happy and find the true causes of that suffering.

Compassion is defined as the desire to put an end to the suffering of others and the causes of that suffering.

These are not merely noble sentiments; they are feelings that are fundamentally in tune with reality. All beings want to avoid suffering just as much as we do.

Art of meditation, Matthieu Ricard