I think altruism is based on reciprocity
Maybe that's what it feels like for you. My altruistic side feeds on my Buddhist ethics: I am just like any other human, so their suffering is not incomprehensible to me, because I have suffered too. I can identify with their aversion to suffering because that's exactly the same aversion to suffering that I feel. It has nothing to do with exchange or expected gain.
That is interesting that you mention that, because I spent years going to Buddhist meditation centers (of the Lama Ole type) and at some level still identify with it. However I never understood it as a sense of ethical duties or maxims I must exert my will to follow, but rather a set of practices that will put me in a state of bliss and natural compassion where I won't need to exert wil in this regard, goodness will just naturally flow from me. In this sense I am not even sure Buddhist ethics even exists if we define ethics as something you must force your...
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