There are minds, especially yoga and/or buddhism enthusiasts from the Chinese language background, would think and believe or understand that selflessness (無我) is a state of mind or being or realm (無我境界), that it is a state of highest level of spirituality, or purity, or merit and virtue that is reached or attained after engaging in certain persevered observations and practices, where there are many studying or reading materials about the Dhamma, or the teachings of Buddhism, that are being written in Chinese language, or that are being transcribed into Chinese language by many different minds from different era and location, have been describing, or transcribing, or referring selflessness (無我) in such way, that it is a form of physical, mental, and spiritual development, or transformation, or evolution, or achievement of changing from the contaminated impure state of 'self-ness' to become or return to the original pure state of 'selflessness'.
That is why the highly importance of renunciation, to renounce or move away from all kinds of worldly egoistic learning, ideas, beliefs, values, practices, knowledge, interactions, activities, affairs, communities, or ties and connections, to observe silence in seclusion and solitude, for the mind to be free from the influence of all that, to be quieting the mind effectively, that allows the mind to see the truth of things as it is, upon silence, upon the thinning-out and annihilation of the restless impure egoistic modification of the mind, a.k.a. the veil of ignorance.
Selflessness is also largely being misunderstood as the quality of unselfishness, or a quality that is achievable by and that only belongs to certain minds or beings that are 'good', 'kind', 'generous', 'pure', 'wise', 'sympathetic', 'empathetic', 'meritorious', 'virtuous', 'righteous', 'moral', 'respectable', 'peaceful', or 'enlightened'.
Similarly, compassion is also being misunderstood in such way, that it is a sympathetic and empathetic quality of unconditional indiscriminate loving kindness that can be presence or absence, that can increase or decrease, that it can be learnt and practiced, that can be developed and empowered, that it is about giving happiness to others and removing unhappiness from others, or that one can be transforming or evolving from non-compassionate or less compassionate, to becoming more compassionate or highly compassionate.
Compassion, is merely the selfless power of creation/manifestation that enables all kinds of selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary names and forms to be manifesting, existing, and functioning as what they are, to be arising, changing, and passing away, under the nature's law of cause and effect.
All and everyone and everything cannot exist or function as what they are, if without the selfless power of creation or compassion that exists in all and everyone and everything, regardless of what type of quality that one has or doesn't have.
One doesn't (need to) evolve and become selfless. All are selfless, as it is.
All are selfless, regardless of what type of states of mind, or what kind of qualities and achievements that one has and doesn't have, or what type of belief and disbelief, understanding and non-understanding, knowledgeable or non-knowledgeable, talented or non-talented, successful or non-successful, good or bad condition, healthy or unhealthy, good or bad behavior, kind or unkind, pure or impure, selfish or unselfish, generous or non-generous, happy or unhappy, positive or negative, desire and don't desire, peaceful or peaceless, and etc.
Selflessness is not a practice, or an achievement, or a theory.
Selflessness is what all and everything are. It is a direct realization or understanding of the mind towards the truth of all and everything, upon silence, or the annihilation of the veil of ignorance, a.k.a. the absence of the idea of 'I', egoism, impurities, and restlessness.
Regardless of whether the mind realizes or doesn't realize selflessness, all and everything are selfless.
The truth of selflessness, as well as impermanence, limitation, conditional, and non-self in all and everything doesn't change into something else, regardless of what/who/when/how/where, regardless of whether the mind knows/understands or doesn't know/understand.
Upon the direct self realization towards the truth of selflessness, all kinds of violence, upset, unhappiness, resentment, bitterness, hurt, anger, hatred, argument, debate, distress, unrest, disturbance, conflict, justification, clinging, longing, insecurity, discontentment, greed, possessiveness, offensiveness, defensiveness, interference, fear, guilt, regret, shame, pride, mourning, grief, painful sorrow, expectation, wishful thinking, hopefulness, all kinds of duality, and so on, disappear from the mind.
There is nothing wrong or negative that there are many minds are still functioning under the influence of ignorance and egoism, even if the minds might be ceaselessly generating hurtful ideas/behaviors/actions/reactions that hurt oneself and others and the surrounding environment under the influence of ignorance and egoism, because it is natural that the minds are being ignorant towards ignorance due to ignorance.
That is why this world is what it is, full of confused minds and ignorant egoistic hurtful ideas and behaviors that give rise to the consequences of all that (all kinds of unnecessary evitable painful suffering, unrest, or violence that doesn't need to be there at all). It is a form of mild to serious mental illness (the different degrees or thickness of the veil of ignorance a.k.a. the egoistic impure restless modification of the mind), that exist in most minds, that can be removed only by the mind itself, out of its own initiation and effort, under the precious presence of its own conscious awareness/freewill/desire/yearning towards liberation from ignorance and the by-products of ignorance (the precious conscious awareness/perception/cognition/acknowledgement/notion/idea/thought/understanding/desire of, "I am not free. I am not happy. I am not peaceful. I want to be free. I want to be happy. I want to be peaceful." as well as, "I don't want to hurt myself. I don't want to hurt others.").
Just as the minds that haven't realized the truth of selflessness yet, and they cannot grasp or comprehend selflessness ("How can I that is existing here and now, that is perceiving and understanding my own existence, that is inquiring and realizing that there is no existence of I, or I don't exist?"), the minds that are still functioning under the influence of ignorance and egoism, cannot comprehend the other minds that are free from the influence of ignorance and egoism, while the minds that are free from the influence of ignorance and egoism naturally understand towards all the other minds that are functioning under the influence of ignorance and egoism, that influencing them to be thinking/reasoning/evaluating/understanding/behaving/desiring/aspiring/acting/reacting in certain way and not in certain way, that gives rise to all kinds of unnecessary evitable affliction and destruction in oneself and into the surrounding environment, wittingly and unwittingly.
Selflessness, where there is no permanent independent immortal infinite individual existence of self/I existing in any names and forms to be undergoing the selfless impermanent limited and conditional non-self existence and function and the ceaseless changes upon coming into existence, of undergoing the forming/growing/decaying/disintegrating process during the momentary existence, it doesn't mean that this selfless mind of this selfless impermanent physical body, that is momentarily existing and functioning here and now, that is undergoing ceaseless changes, that is being aware of itself as well as the surrounding environment of all and everything that are all selfless and impermanent, or all these, don't exist.
All these exist, both the perceiver and the perceived, but momentarily, selflessly, impermanently, limitedly, conditionally, and non-self, where the momentary existence and function of all and everything don't even belong to the names and forms themselves.
Under the influence of ignorance and egoism, many minds perceive, interpret, and understand selflessness and self-inquiry is about "I am existing here and now to be aware of and inquire towards I don't 'really' exist?" Or even, out of wild imagination having been listening to many stories telling/fairy tales, studying and reading many novels/scriptures/books, and watching many movies, the mind thinks and believes that, "I don't really exist here in this reality that is not real and not perfect. I exist in another reality that is real and perfect. This reality that I am perceiving now, is not real. This is not my real existence. My real existence is somewhere else in another reality that is real and perfect. This is just a dream. I am in a dream. I need to wake up from this dream (this unreal and imperfect reality, that is full of imperfection, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, disappointment, violence, unrest, fear, hurt, painful sorrow, decay, hunger, thirst, illness, old age, mortality, or suffering) to be waking up back to my real existence (the real and perfect reality where I really exist in, that is devoid of imperfection, unhappiness, dissatisfaction, disappointment, violence, unrest, fear, hurt, painful sorrow, decay, hunger, thirst, illness, old age, mortality, or suffering)."
That is why the highly importance of non-blind believing, non-blind following, non-blind practicing, non-blind propagating, and non-blind glorifying.
Inquire the truth of everything, including all that is here, and all kinds of teachings of yoga and buddhism coming from anyone and everywhere.
It is absolutely possible to be free from ignorance and all those madness/wild imagination/wishful thinking/stories making and telling deriving from ignorance.
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