Yes, it's a simple (if obscure) way to express the nature of being. Most of the moral and ethical arguments that circulate in the world are based on a defective premise -- the defective premise is "the individual is separate from the whole". With that as a starting point, moral reasoning starts to become very complicated, very quickly. How much of my effort should be devoted to others vs. devoted to myself? Where do my rights stop and someone else' rights begin? Is inaction in the face of another's suffering immoral? The root of this problem is that our notions of "self" and "other" are concepts which confuse the mind: we try to grasp what is meant by self, and try to separate it in an absolute and final way from what is meant by "other". Then, we forget about how our ideas of self and other were generated (and are full of uncertainty), and we proceed merrily on our way with moral thinking... building sandcastles of philosophical theory upon a broken foundation of false duality. All of these conundrums disappear in a flash when the basic nature of self and other is seen clearly: I am not separate from the whole, so it isn't even possible... in an absolute sense... for me to "do" something to others, because there isn't an absolute separation between me and others. A mind which sees this understands self differently than a mind which doesn't see it: my "true self" includes what we normally think of as "others", and their welfare is considered naturally, just as I consider the welfare of my left foot when walking. There's no sacrifice involved, I'm not heroic for protecting my left foot from injury. This realization is available to all humans, and it occurs quite reliably and naturally on the path of spiritual development -- it's not some sort of mystical state in which one discovers a hidden metaphysics, it's just the intuitive recognition of relatedness, cause and effect, and interconnectedness of life. That intuition is more fundamental than all of the ideas we've absorbed about "self"... when we unplug the "self -centered dream", it's right there like a familiar chair.

Well, yeah... I'm not going to write an entire essay like stable boy, but it seems to me what you have in that statement is a little bit of the golden rule mixed with karma. In a less literal sense I'd say it meant something to me too... I am human so I don't always follow that mantra, but most of the time I try and stick by it.

Karma..what goes around..comes around.

Yes. It means you're gonna be real nice to me.

nope. not a bean.