Helping Others -- A Matter Of Skillful Choices?

Dakini

On another thread, one member commented that although he had been oriented towards helping others in all areas of life, he's coming to the realization that "helping people is REALLY difficult". He wondered if it was realistic to expect that we can help others.

Another member ventured: "The best bet is to help others that are already on a good path...and in this way the help goes both ways."

Another responded: "It is those already on a good path who least need the help. One of Jesus' final acts before dying was to invite the thief to join him in paradise. He understood that while it might be harder to love the sinner, the sinner needs the love all the more."

Probably most of us have had the experience of offering aid to someone who couldn't make use of it, couldn't rise above his own delusions. How do we choose? Or should be choose? Ideas, comments?

SherabDorje

Just for me, it's a matter of helping if I think the help is actually going to do some good. I tried for years to help a friend that was a hopeless alcoholic, and I finally just had to stop.

So yes, IMO it takes a skillful choice.

lightlotus

emphasis on the word skillful. Think its important to be able to identify the point early on where your almost life coaching a person and you need to back away for your own sake.

I've had to loose a friend recently who fails to accept the blame for their own suffering and needed my constant help and it was wearing me out - im not likely to be helpful to others anymore IMO i have learnt from all my mistakes why should i protect others from learning from theirs!

compassionate_warrior

@lightlotus Setting healthy boundaries in advance is important, i.e. knowing your own limitations, so you don't get enmeshed. Then if the help you offer within healthy limits doesn't work or isn't enough, you walk away. It's not always easy, but it's better than the alternative--burning out and/or getting resentful.

genkaku

If you want to help others, just give what you will without a backward glance. If you make a mistake, correct it. Stop imagining things like "help" and "self" and "others."

A line I always liked: Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help.

Thao

My teacher has taught me to never preach to others unless they ask. So I don't try to help others in this way. I help by giving to the poor,and at this moment i have 9 feral but neutered cats that need help at the cost of $50 a month.
And when I see John, who has a home but lives on SSI, begging downtown, I give him money. Other than those types of giving, I don't think we can help people unless they are mentally suffering, homeless, or something else that we can do for them.

But like lightlotus, i have tried to help friends in the past, and it didn't work; instead i was worn out and after many years, i learned to direct people to help.

lightlotus

Sometimes its hard to ask for help and a pride gets in the way with some so I understand that most turn to friends - its the point of realisation that you need to abandon some one in need of help and after math of guilt that sets in which is bad!

I drove past this ex-friends house twice at the weekend and I felt sad it came to point of no more friendship. I also think suffering is something that we all need to overcome and deal with ourselves sometimes we end up getting in the way of peoples own personal development.

I actually had a Chrisitian friend preech to me recently and I won the debate and I had them stop and realise how my choice was right for me. I suffered alone, I had bad patches in my life alone, healed via meditation alone and I didn't need the help of others to make my move to find peace in Buddhism. Maybe we hinder others tremendously when we help too much!

lightlotus

CW, I should have backed away a long time ago. I even had a different friend say the same situation happened to her and that this friend even cared enough to go to the doctors with her to seek councilling and my ex-friend didnt turn up to the appointment. This was good to know to ease my guilt feelings of abandoning her.

Epicurus

My motto for helping others is "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

I like to give help, by supporting, believing in people and advising them (if they have any doubts as to how to solve a specific problem). At the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own happiness and you can't control people.

compassionate_warrior

I drove past this ex-friends house twice at the weekend and I felt sad it came to point of no more friendship. I also think suffering is something that we all need to overcome and deal with ourselves sometimes we end up getting in the way of peoples own personal development.

So tell yourself that you did the right thing, LL. No guilt, because you did what was best for both you and the friend. Plus, as I recall, it was a very one-sided friendship, so from that perspective, you haven't lost a friend, if you define "friend" as someone who reciprocates support, listening, compassion. If you're suffering, change the way you think about the situation. There's no reason for guilt or other negativity. All you did was take the training wheels off the bike.

lightlotus

the guilt ended the minute my other childhood friend said the line "Oh she got to you too. I drove accross town to make her go speak to a professional. She never turned up - she'll never learn!" I thought at that moment im not going to be too helpful to others ever again and get caught up into something where the person may need help that I cant give but refuses to seek professional advice.

I think suffering can be a good thing it wakes you up to reality and made me question why it took me so long to shake this friend off (so to speak!)

Vincenzi

for the help to be actually useful, everyone has to put its part.
maybe a buddha can help anyone... but focusing on those already on a path to improvement has worked for me.

compassionate_warrior

for the help to be actually useful, everyone has to put its part.
maybe a buddha can help anyone... but focusing on those already on a path to improvement has worked for me.

This sounds skillful.

Epicurus

^who can we depend on to help the "sinners" though?

IronRabbit

If you want to help others, just give what you will without a backward glance. If you make a mistake, correct it. Stop imagining things like "help" and "self" and "others."

A line I always liked: Just because you are indispensable to the universe does not mean the universe needs your help.</blockquote

Thank you, genkaku - for just being present - the greatest help we can offer.

"Eighty percent of success is showing up..."
- Woody Allen

SkyLotus

I think that helping other people, as mentioned previously should be within the set limitations/boundaries of the person helping the other. I also think that it is important to remember that you can only help a person insofar as they are willing to help themselves; you certainly cannot save everyone.

Whoknows

This is a hard question in some ways. In relation to helping others: I think we tend to think poorly of ourselves and that is one of the main causes of suffering, whereas, in reality, the suffering we bring to ourselves and others is more about our karmic conditioning rather than our inherent personality faults. The degree at which we blame ourselves tends to determine where we are on the path. When we try to help someone and things go wrong, we tend to retaliate in some way, those that are more established on the path tend to blame themselves, rather than the typical situation where the other is blamed. But even this blame is driven by our lack of self belief/respect. And, as Buddhists, we would know that this lack of self belief/respect has its roots in how we cling to the self- as it is the ego that is upset. If we can accept that our karmic conditioning has a lot to answer for when things go wrong then we can let these set backs go and move forward and continue to try to help others. In this situation we can help others with a light heart to our best ability and appropriate/available resources.

You may argue that this view removes our responsibility to right action, yet I would argue that this responsibility is more attuned to our guilt cycles and tying us to the suffering of Samsara and is more detrimental than helpful to ourselves and others. I would further argue that the best help we can do for others is to reduce the clinging to ourselves through persistent meditation, because, by doing this we become more useful and skilful to others. This is almost like skilful use of apparently contradicting forces of causality and free will. We can blame reductionalist causality when things go wrong, yet energize our free will to move forward and make more positive and beneficial choices.

What we really need to do, to be the best help to others, is to jettison the excess emotional baggage that we carry around. It is funny, because I sometimes think that by understanding the harm of the clinging to the self, the individual actually achieves greater self respect.

I'm amazed at what my wife achieves on just a typical day at work, she is a nurse and is very caring. Often she comes home quite tired, the way I try to help her is to (as gently as possible) help her see the great good she does at work and I occasionally explain to her the merit of her actions. It doesn't always work (I definitely do not want to preach), but when it does some of her tiredness falls away and she gains a small increase in self respect and self appreciation.

One positive thing I will get to do (causes and conditions permitting) is that I'm going to see His Holiness the Dalai Lama for the first time when he comes to Melbourne to present his teachings on Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. Cool.

Dakini

^who can we depend on to help the "sinners" though?

This is an important question. Most of us aren't qualified to help people under certain circumstances: criminals or the mentally ill, for example. All desperately need compassionate treatment, so maybe what we could do is join a prisoner or patient advocacy group, lobby for more humane treatment of prisoners and for therapy in the prisons, or work for an end to child abuse, where problems often have their root. There are lots of ways to take a supporting role, rather than get involved directly in matters that can be over our heads.

Wednesday

I think the dalai lama said that enlightenment in one sentence is "if you cant help, dont hinder"

Whoknows

Good points @Wednesday and @Dakini but the other extreme is passivity and lack of action due to a feeling of helplessness. Should we think that we should refrain from trying to help our mentally ill family member just because we don't have psychological degrees? In this academic world of cramming for exams, how much respect should we give those with degrees? What level of scepticism should we have about "experts" in their field? Having said that, a friend once said that I was more cynical than sceptical and I think that he was quite correct. Maybe not quite so much now. After all extreme scepticism is yet another absolute and our body of knowledge is now very well developed.

I think basic Buddhist principles comes in here, with some degree of realism required, in that the motivation behind the action is more important than the outcome. Obviously this cannot be taken as an absolute (some intelligence is required), but a positive motivation should help result in a positive act. Even if we cannot help at the root of the other person's difficulty we can still help by giving them small kindnesses if the opportunity presents itself (of course we should not expect anything in return) and our physical safety is taken into consideration. I do not think that these small kindnesses fade into insignificance.

Dakini

OK, Who, helping a family member is different from helping a stranger. There's already a bond established with a family member, which is absent with a stranger, obviously, and if the stranger has emotional problems, it may be impossible to establish enough of a connection to suggest appropriate help. (I just went through this with someone, and had to give up. Sad.) I know if instances in which people have been very compassionate with a mentally ill colleague, and it ended up backfiring on the compassionate person in a big way. All I'm saying is that some situations are trickier than we might think, I'm not writing off the mentally ill or emotionally disturbed. But skillfulness is important in such situations.

And yes, absolutely--small kindnesses should already be part of our daily behavior.

Yacababy

I hope no one writes off the mentally Ill. I am considered in that category haha. of course it is difficult to help people. I have a friend who is deep in suffering due to the choices she has made and the people she has chosen to hang out with. I watched as she constantly chose the easy way out which in turn let to a harder life. I did what I could. I fed her emaciated body and listened to her anger and complaints. I try to make up care packs because she doesn't have very many things to keep up get health with. However this is a one way road. I receive no help, compassion or comfort from her. This has caused a great rift to form and even fighting. I have accepted that I can't really help her I can't fix her problems or make ger take the right road.... I have done what I CAN and just have to have hope for her

Dakini

Well, theoretically, our goal is to help without expecting anything in return, but when it's a friend, people do tend to expect reciprocity in some form at some point. At least you know you tried, Yacababy. You can do a meditation where you breathe in her problems, visualized as dark smoke, and breathe out clean, healing air to send her way. Some people say that actually helps.