helping others

I have been having a bunch of interesting situations come up that point to the complexity (or simplicity?) of how we respond to others whom we perceive to need help.

It reminds me of how in some metta practices you specifically focus on metta towards people you love, then towards people you feel neutral towards, and then towards people you dislike.

With that in mind, do you find you respond differently to people depending on whether you perceive their suffering to be "their fault"? How do you consider this when responding? How does your interaction with others relate to your practice in this regard?

For example, how does your inclination to respond differ towards a drunk hobo sprawled in your apartment doorway each morning; an old lady who stumbles and falls on the sidewalk; a mother harshly scolding her young child; two teenagers arguing under your window at 2am; a person who appears to be lost but becomes angry when you ask if they need help?

How do you think about the idea that everyone is fundamentally "where they are at" and though one can offer pointers or assistance, sometimes that comes from our own selfishness and sometimes from a place of deeper compassion, and it can be hard to clarify that?

Thoughts?

That's so true. When I will the fighting family down the hall to settle down, it is both because they are clearly so unhappy and because it is painful to my eardrums.

But HOW I respond? I could go pound on the door and shout at them, I could report them to management and let them be fined (there's a building rule against screaming), I could pray for God to send peace and harmony to their apartment (my current strategy), I could pray the husband finds a job in another city and they move away....

I guess how I choose to respond (avoiding for the moment the whole discussion of agency that brings up) is where skillfulness and my own practice comes into play, as any one of those options might work well enough; maybe in fact, one I'm not doing would work better than one I am doing.

This reminds me of the tibetan adage that it's more effective to put on shoes than to cover the world in leather. The better my shoes, the less thorns bother me, and so the more practical assistance I can give to those caught in the thorns. Sometimes the assistance is forceful: lifting and carrying them away from the thorns into a clear patch. this is often the case with young kids, right? or easily upset co-workers? Just re-arranging circumstances from the POV of greater clarity and freedom.

Then there is helping someone make a a pair of shoes for themselves, which assumes they want to and have asked for help or are making some but are making a common mistake I can help out with.

Then there's telling someone to make themselves a pair of shoes already, which is never that helpful it seems as it puts them on the defensive (after all they were just making a legitimate complaint about all the thorns on the ground now-a-days hahaha!), but could be in just the right circumstances maybe.

Also i have to remember that reducing suffering is reducing suffering, whether it's my own or someone elses. Technically, I can do little or nothing to reduce anothers' suffering anyway, but only re-arrange circumstances which reduce their opportunities to suffer or in the best scenario offering pointers about this dynamic and the wys in which suffering has more to do with one's own response to life than with circumstances. So I generally view other folks' contagious suffering behaviors as a good opportunity for me to learn about my own aversion more than anything else, although praying for them or making good wishes for them definitely can't hurt IMO. Actually directly intervening in neighbors' or other strangers' "stuff" though, is MUCH more complicated IMO. Generally unless I have a sense of their receptivity I refrain unless there's physical danger involved, as well intentioned advice can easily be taken the wrong way and feed into anothers' drama.

I just wrote a big long post in response to this, but it started feeling dry and lifeless. That doesn't help anything, now does it?

The truth is, sometimes we just respond. Especially when there is no fear.

For example, I was driving home with my wife on Tuesday night when a medium-sized black dog darted across the street in front of my car and another car coming toward us on the other side of the street. I slammed on my breaks, and so did the other driver. The dog made it across the street and ran up to a house. I noticed the dog was wearing tags, so I pulled over, got out of the car, and tried to get the dog to come over to me so I could see if there was a phone number on the tag. After a minute or so, a door to one of the homes opened and the dog went inside. I noticed that one of the home owners was in a room upstairs, and the door to their patio was open. So, I yelled, "Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!"

He came out. I said, "Sir, do you have a black dog." He replied, "Yes, we just let her inside." I said, "Your dog just ran across the street in front of my car and another car, and we almost hit her." He smiled, kind of laughed, and said, "Oh, OK."

Not feeling like my point was coming across, I said, "Sir, I just wanted to make sure your dog was OK, because we Almost. Hit. Your. Dog." I can't remember if he said anything or not. As I left, I heard one of his young daughters saying, "What happened? What happened?" But I didn't hear what he said.

I love animals (even though I still eat them sometimes). And, I tend to go out of my way for them without thinking twice about it. If there was something I could do to let this guy know that he probably shouldn't let his dog run around freely in the dark of night, I was going to do it. I feel bad when loving pets are neglected, and are harmed due to their adopted family's unawareness. So, I speak up.

Maybe this has something to do with what you're asking. Maybe not.

All these answers and examples relate to what I was asking.

I'd heard the saying before, better to put on slippers than carpet the world.

This, and Jackson's dog story, remind me of a woman I worked with years ago. In a large department she stood out for her absolutely driven, intense animal-rights activism, which entailed talking about little else and hanging impassioned pleas to intervene in this or that cause, complete with photos of sad wet kittens or starving dogs. It was quite difficult to talk to her about much (even work!), because of her defensive and intense obsession with her charity work.

My gut was that although the principles of the cause were certainly fine - who wants to see anything suffer? - her intensity and drive around this cause spoke to her interest in the subject coming from a place of fear or trauma. Her desire to carpet the world, I suspected, was actually in part a desire to carpet over some pain in her own life.

So there's an extreme example of how wanting to help others can sometimes come from a very selfish place, and when it does, it can become an unskillful practice.

And as with Jake's comment about our own practice, that's definitely often on my mind. If the neighbor's screaming is bothering me, that's something interesting for me to be aware of. It's interesting what bothers or doesn't bother one. I notice that a certain intensity of blood-curdling screaming simply triggers flight/fight response - it can't be helped, at least in my own case. There's a slight startle response and adrenaline kick from the perception that someone is under attack (even when it's an undisciplined pair of kids tormenting each other). This seems separate from the "annoyance" factor, which might arise if I am hearing the arguing and banging around and wish that it were quiet instead.

My gut was that although the principles of the cause were certainly fine - who wants to see anything suffer? - her intensity and drive around this cause spoke to her interest in the subject coming from a place of fear or trauma. Her desire to carpet the world, I suspected, was actually in part a desire to carpet over some pain in her own life.

-ona

Ahh, yes, very very well put. This really articulates so much of what happens in the world. Callous disregard on one hand, psychologically driven efforts at "compassion" on the other, and thus the world turns. I suspect many inquisitors were trying to "carpet the world." Wow, this is really worth reflecting on.

I notice that a certain intensity of blood-curdling screaming simply triggers flight/fight response - it can't be helped, at least in my own case. There's a slight startle response and adrenaline kick from the perception that someone is under attack (even when it's an undisciplined pair of kids tormenting each other). This seems separate from the "annoyance" factor, which might arise if I am hearing the arguing and banging around and wish that it were quiet instead.


-ona

Hahahaha One of the greatest sources of development and stabilization in my practice was driving with an infant. I know that "blood curdling fight-flight response triggering scream" very, very well lol. And remember I live in a fairly rural area; it takes a good 45 minutes to get to a Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks cafe, one of my favorite indulgences. I just kept remembering Namkhai Norbu's constant and relentless admonition that if one's "calm state" of resting in open clarity can be disturbed by literally anything, whether an arising thought or a screaming baby, then one is not really practicing in a way that will have a profound impact on daily life. I took this as a challenge and it's turned out great. I can't say I never experience those buttons being pushed, of course, but... wow, what a difference it has made to practice this way.

LOL - good for you. Baby as practice support.

The first time clearly noticed this reaction when I was in a taxi and the driver had some kind of horror movie playing on the dashboard DVD player. I couldn't see the movie, but I could hear the awful sounds of someone who was apparently cornered by the bad guy, begging and crying and screaming. I decided to make it a practice instead of asking the driver to turn it off, and just noted how much I wanted to run away from danger or rush to the aid of the victim, and how my mind was desperately trying to imagine what the attacker looked like, so it could make a good decision about fight vs. flight (ie was it a dumb criminal who could be chased off with a baseball bat, or a supernatural invincible man-eating alien?). It was a very revealing 20 minutes.

hahaha