Trigger words: Compassion
Indicator sentences: This isn't a functional or desirable definition of compassion.
Negotiation parts: I don't believe anyone who is not either mentally disturbed or deficient is actually capable of doing this, and I wouldn't want him to be. Are you able to explain why? I'm very open to criticism, but you'll need to give me a structured or demonstrative argument behind your belief. Am I able to explain why that's not the definition of compassion? I can explain what the definition of compassion actually is: "sympathetic concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others." Sympathy isn't the same as compassionate empathy. I'd say that the dictionary isn't designed to handle philosophical topics and isn't of a lot of use in these situations. It's not possible to discuss an idea, philosophical or otherwise, unless the persons doing so use the same language with the same standard set of definitions for each word in that language. If you don't want to use specific English words as defined in the English language dictionary, I'm pretty sure it'll be impossible for us to discuss any idea meaningfully.
Trigger words: Compassion
Indicator sentences: Why does compassion need to be universal in your opinion? Am I not compassionate for jumping in the water to save a drowning person, simply because I don't care as much about a bug on the other side of the world as I do them at that point?
Negotiation parts: You can have more influence on the person in your immediate presence. I don't think it takes a very compassionate person to save someone from drowning, so I wouldn't say that makes you a compassionate person in general. It just makes you a person. You didn't really address my question. Why did you define compassion as being universal (all beings, equal amounts)? Is it not possible to be compassionate to a (possibly very large) subset of beings? Your mind can only focus on a few at a time, the point is to show the some love and compassion to the person that robbed you and killed your dog as the person that supported you and helped you in a dark time. you can't save everyone, you do the best you can. it doesn't mean you can't be compassionate towards all beings I'm not saying that people can't be compassionate. I'm providing a counterpoint to, or asking questions about, OP's view that you are not compassionate until you love every being everywhere to the maximum degree. OP is using 'compassion' in place of 'universal compassion'. what you're talking about is being selectively compassionate. both are types of compassion, it sounds to me like they were just defining their terms, or at least one of them That's exactly the question I am asking of OP. Is he? oh okay, i thought you were asking rhetorically to make a point. my b
Trigger words: believing reality
Indicator sentences: if you have a very narrow notion of the words 'reality' and 'believe', then I'm sure that's true
Negotiation parts: I don't like the word belief or believe as they are defined. They are like assumptions. Reality is a topic I hate talking about because it has no real answers as to what it is. It is always dependant on the experience of the user. I simply imagine reality as being defined as that which we perceive. Since it is impossible to actually understand it any further without being outside of reality. all words fall short though, all we can do is our best in using them to convey our meaning effectively Funny how language helps and hinders at the same time.
Trigger words: love loving
Indicator sentences: Ah, bummer, I forgot that "love" is such a slippery term.
Negotiation parts: There are for sure multiple forms of love, there is a concept that split the word into two core categories as love with or without attachment. Googling "love without attachment" brings up a lot of interesting results. The idea is that usually when people say love, they mean with attachment, eg... I love cheese, I love my mother; you love these things because of some value or relationship to your ego, ergo your ego has a love for them. Love without is considered the pure form of love, and it certainly doesn't come from the ego because it has no value associated with the object and the id has nothing to gain. It is possible to use the "without attchment" form for all the conscious beings we love with our ego, and old spirituality based beliefs tend to suggest that this is a healthier form of love. For that reason, I think we may be talking about a different form of love, and I sincerely apologise for not being clearer by what I meant by this word. "love without attachment" - to be completely without attachment is to have no relationship at all between the subject and object, between the lover and the loved... I'm trying my best to imagine it... there is a sense in that I love everyone on earth in an abstract fashion - for what they represent, fellow humans who are alive and struggling to live and thrive - but that's because I share common values with them, being a human myself. So it's not without attachment or without relationship - and the proof would be that if I had to give my life (in some hypothetical battle with Aliens!) so humanity could survive, I would. To love without attachment - wouldn't that mean no action was required if their existence was threatened? Love without action seems rather cold... and meaningless. Sometimes the phrase refers to letting someone you love be free of you: if she loves another man, and you know she will be better off with him, then maybe you let yourself disappear without a fuss from her life and love her from afar "without attachment". But that too is an action based on a relationship that cares for the state of her existence. So love without attachment doesn't seem like a noble thing to me. What is noble or not noble would be the type of attachment, not the lack of. This guy provides a description that seems [near enough correct for me](http://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-love-someone-without-attachment). So it is still with relationship, but you're not in that relationship for your own gain nor theirs, you are in a loving relationship at that moment with that being because you simply are. I tried to write an example, but it is long and might not help. I'll just speak from personal experience. Without the fear and need that comes with the ego, I can be much warmer, much more adventurous, and truly honest. I had trouble with all these things before. A close personal relationship with someone becomes a long set of amazing moments, each experience is new and amazing and I'm thankful every time, but once it is in the past, it is gone; I smile back fondly with warm memories of the past, but it does not dictate my next moment. What you've described above is the far more social normative definition of warm/cold and love, but the other type of love works just as well using the same metrics when examining a personal relationship between two people. The best thing about love without attachment is it enables a very effective way of loving yourself in a really honest manner. I worry that this is starting to come off a bit preachy, if I was in your position I may have stopped reading by now. Just two small notes. 1. You can try this form of love unto yourself as an experiment, it will take a little bit of mindful meditation to get to a state where your mind is sufficiently self-aware and enough of your directives are coming from the prefrontal cortex to do it, but it is pretty easy to achieve. 2. It can help in forming new relationships as people are naturally drawn to people that use this kind of approach to loving self-guidance, and it helps in avoiding bad relationships.