[Wezfyowk]

When it comes to dealing with loving emotions, things are not always as clear as good intentions indicate.

There are always conflicting means when it comes to addressing problems. For example what if a very cunning close relative, who has suffered, is also manipulative in their demands for 'love', attention etc, but by their very psychotic approach makes sane caring impossible by virtue of wanting you to play mind games?

Compassion is all very well, but did Buddha say much about where to draw the line. Is it O.K to ignore some people by virtue of their mental/ physical condition, when efforts for decades have proved fruitless and may well have exacerbated the problems.

The complexity of life lends itself to a lot of nuancing; not many issues are clear cut and while some or all people may be victims of their own ignorance/karma or whatever surely we need to look very carefully at how we evaluate good acts.

In an earlier thread I mentioned the idea of Idiot Compassion and must say I still find this issue hard to get around.

Freedom from suffering, in a very broad sense, may well be to free oneself from excessive and inappropriate desires but how does one convey this view to those on hugely divergent tangents? Speaking from my own personal position, I have tried to help people and always, seemingly, to my own disadvantage in many ways. I am not stupid and have not tried to assist with offering drugs, alcohol, or immoral advice. One can only do one's best........perhaps I am stupid as alot of 'this stuff' has gone on for decades.

I do not consider myself a good or pious person; conversely I think that the general tenets of Buddhism as I percieve it, may come across as pushing the intrinsic goodness of all sentient beings just a little too strongly.