[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Cran

The effort of the calculation of give and return is cancelled out be the effort to give and give (and give more than a DW = more effort in giving, less effort in calculating for a LW)

Now, seriously: Figuring out how to give and how to do good is also an everoccuring effort. See a situation and figure out how to use it to your advantage or to the advantage of everybody involved, in both circumstances you'll do some figuring.

Is it an effort for a LW to give? That's where I'd say a LW just gives out of seeing the world as a place that gives to each other. I don't think a LW has to figure out what to give or who to give to, they just kind of give to those that match what they have in themselves to give. The LW's natural gifts are picked up by others that need or want what that is. The DW on the other hand is trying to figure out what the return will be.

Btw, I don't know if it is really an effort to calculate... for me, it isn't. It isn't really hard to know that it won't pay off to walk over the shy, but brilliant fellow student who hands out scripts even if he annoys me at times. I certainly won't put the same effort in not insulting the coffee cart girl in a big city.

Then I'm wrong about the taxing effort it seems to take to be an effective DW. It just seems that there's a fear running that makes it difficult to decide what to invest in.

Is that more effort than to think about how I can do good? Hardly.

To be able to think about how to do good is how a DW would see the LW's work. To the LW they are resting in abundance and sharing. If a LW is trying to figure out how to help the world, then it's a joy for them. For the DW it's a figuring out how to take and has fear about maybe it's not the right person to abuse/disregard or extract from. The LW doesn't have to figure out who to dump or not, there is no exclusion.

Second thoughts: "Reap what you sow" etc. are mindsets that tend to be self-fulfilling and are not universally accepted as truth. I certainly don't hold this principle to be true, therefore it doesn't influence me to think that I'll reap bad things for my selfish actions and so I do not reap bad things.

then many spiritual teachers have been wrong. The ideas are that we are actually all one. That when Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" was really to say "when you do something to others, you are actually doing that to yourself". Of coarse one can believe that there is no connection to others, to the world and we can exploit it to ruin. That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?