Lojong Slogan 38 ~ Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness

This is part 38 of my series on Lojong - Buddhist mind training techniqueIf our happiness is dependent on another suffering, it is not true happiness according to this slogan.When we feel the need to take advantage of others or to exploit others for our own gain we develop a dog-eat-dog mentality as opposed to the compassion that we are trying to cultivate in our lojong training. If we wish to have happiness it is already within us; we simply need to recognize the true source of happiness. We don't need to seek it through externals. Once we go down this road we start to notice the many times we walk on another being to get to our happiness. And sometimes we even hope for another's failure or suffering so that we may succeed. We need to pay attention to the patterns in our lives and notice when we need a decrease in someone else's happiness in order for our own to increase.This slogan can be applied to the earth and to all living things.