In his typically hip way of being in the world, the Dalai Lama is on Facebook. His posts are always about compassion towards all sentient beings and altruism. Altruism to the Dalai Lama is blind – it’s done unconsciously with no thought of personal gain, though we know there is personal gain in our own sense of well being.

I recently began a rather rambling book The Price of Altruism, by Oren Harman. The book centers around a fellow named George Price, who no one ever heard of, but who was a chemist, among other things, and primarily a genius level, if somewhat fanatic, thinker. Price was always looking for that one idea that would set him apart though he had a penchant for dropping his projects before they were fully realized. Nonetheless, the point of the book is Price’s eventual quest to discover the origins of human kindness.

I haven’t reached the point in the book where his focus on altruism commences. This is because Mr. Harman loads the book with back history of the well-populated scientific path to discover why creatures are altruistic. Apparently this search was motivated by Darwin’s Origin of Species and its subsequent “survival of the fittest” doctrine. Darwin himself spent time attempting to discover why, if the rule was the strongest survive and multiply, there were members of species that displayed some sort of altruism towards the group, for instance, a warning cry of danger that put the crier in a weakened and vulnerable position. Why would a creature sacrifice itself for the greater good if its individual goal was survival?

One theory was that altruistic creatures attract other altruistic creatures and therefore produce altruistic offspring. In other words, as genetics developed, it was thought there could be a gene for altruism.

But this isn’t what the Dalai Lama is hoping for. He’s working to see that those of us who did not come from altruistic origins and therefore did not have the gene passed down to us will change, or adapt, if you will, like other creatures adapt to their environment and change the characteristics of the species.

A gene for altruism would let me, and others who did not spring from altruistic parentage, off the hook. Yet, it also could put a greater burden on us to adapt to something that doesn’t come naturally, like asking someone who doesn’t have the genetic make up to be a great athlete to suddenly compete on an Olympic level.

And how much is enough?  Is my making the trip to the Good Will drop off to give them a bag of clothes enough altruism to cause adaptation? Or did I need to stop yesterday, when I saw a woman sitting in a clump of overgrown vines, a bottle in her hand and looking very out of place, and ask her if she was all right? I didn’t do that; I walked on by with my dog on the leash. I had no money, no cell phone, nothing with me but Spanky and a plastic bag of poop, something I do for the greater good – pick up his poop.

I didn’t think about it much afterward. The woman looked as if this is what she did so I left her there to do it. But there is a thought in Buddhism to take care when you turn away the beggar on the road for he might be Buddha. Did I pass Buddha by yesterday? Ummm, I don’t think so. The bottle was a dead giveaway.

Still she was a teacher. She taught me to take a look at my lack of kindness genes. And though I did not stop for her I am taking things to Good Will and I do pick up Spanky’s poop. Small steps. We do what we can.

P.S. After taking the bag of clothes to Good Will I asked them if they would send someone to pick up the parts of my cool canopy bed that won’t fit in the bedroom of my new home because the ceilings are too low. The Good Will representative told me that he did not know of any charitable organization in town that would pick up something without being paid. Come on, altruistic people; work with me here….

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