i am a fan of joseph campbell as well...merle Joe,
Funnily enough I was going to mention acting with spontaneous compassion, but then thought better of it as people here would more than likely responded with, "but animals act spontaneously, too". Yes, I've seen that Joseph Campbell interview. It supplied me with a life-long maxim that resonated when I was only about 17. "Follow your bliss". An amazing mind. I also liked his the God of a Thousand Faces (I think it was called). Mike Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPad ________________________________ From: Joe <[email protected]>; To: <[email protected]>; Subject: Re: [Zen] rise above Sent: Mon, Jun 24, 2013 2:44:59 AM Mike, quoting: "Humans can act altruistically by choice - not just out of fear or reward." Just noting... it seems that the altruistic "acting" is sometimes even without choice, and without consciousness of a choice, but is spontaneous; almost, we might say, as an act of ..."instinct". No self or self-concern gets in the way of the acting. In the awakened person, we know that true compassion arises spontaneously, as wisdom does, and no time is taken to deliberate, nor to choose in circumstances, but one acts appropriately and seamlessly taking, it seems, no time about it. Joe Campbell noted in one of his talks with Bill Moyers in "The Power of Myth" series some events in which people saved others from falling off a cliff, risking their own life, of course to do so, a hill he knew of where people used to drive up to look over the edge and "let their hair fly around". He launched into an extended consideration of altruism, and how altruism is thoughtless and spontaneous. It's a good segment. Maybe YouTube has a snippet ...but I don't know now in which titled or numbered Episode. YouTube's filing system is different. It is a segment with a title on the DVD of "Sacrificial Altruism". I think the Fourth Episode, maybe the third segment in the Fourth episode. --Joe > uerusuboyo@... wrote: > When a person sacrifices themselves for another, even if no one else is aware of them doing so, they're not acting like the dog in Pavlov's experiment. A tiger can be *trained* not to eat the human, but usually by punitive methods against his will. This is what I mean by "transcend". Humans can act altruistically by choice - not just out of fear or reward.
