Why volunteering creates stress in mind? One helps in Buddhist centre , helping the chief abbot/chief nun, helping other monks /nuns, helping yogis, helping this and that. If one refuses to help, people say one becomes more selfish, more egoist! I notice a lot of volunteers, whether renunciates or meditators , do not have happy face or cheerful face, but stressed face and tired face. Actually, they suffer from 'compassionate fatigue' or 'volunteering burnout'. They feel tired, and cannot have time to meditate. When they do sitting meditation, they feel asleep due to tiredness and cannot have mindfulness and concentration on the meditation objects. They help people to get Dhamma, but they seem to lose the peacefulness and happiness in Dhamma . Sometimes I wonder, if volunteering work really can bring happiness and peacefulness to the mind! I also do lots of charity work, Dhamma work. If I work with right people , then things are okay! But if I work with wrong ...
Dhamma Education and Translation, Free Education, Charity