To help others

we need a calm, clear mind.

Empathizing with another person, we feel what he feels. And his suffering suddenly becomes ours. One might wonder, Isn’t this a good thing? The way a caring person reacts to another’s suffering? If we don’t handle the suffering correctly, no.

When the Buddha encountered those who were suffering, he clearly saw their suffering. But if he had taken it all in—like a sponge absorbing water—it would have tainted his calm, clear mind. Instead, he saw the suffering perfectly and, knowing what conditions the person had or didn’t have, intuitively knew how to help, what to say.

But for us, we are a sponge when we encounter others suffering. We’re like a person who jumps into a raging river to save a drowning man. Unable to manage the swirling waters, we realize, too late, we’re drowning too!

The alternative?

View others’ suffering clearly. Then, react calmly. We have a choice as to how to respond to suffering. We can absorb it and, like a sponge, become more soiled with time. Or we can see it clearly and remain unstained while truly helping others.

Finding our path can resemble

a piece of a jigsaw puzzle searching for its home.

A class member told us one evening that although she was raised in a particular religion, she never felt as if it was the one for her. She did not quite fit in. Someone suggested that spiritual traditions are a bit like jigsaw puzzles. Some people gravitate to the closest “puzzle,” the one of their parents. Seeing an empty place, this person approaches it.

A perfect fit!

But others can approach their same puzzle and, for various reasons, they just don’t fit. They try to. They just don’t. Nothing is wrong with the puzzle. Nothing is wrong with the individual. They just don’t go together.

People can spend years trying various puzzles, looking for the one they fit. All the puzzles are beautiful. The fit just isn’t there.

Then, one day, the person walks up to yet another puzzle. Here I go again. But there’s no sigh this time. Instead, Wow! This is it! In a world of beautiful puzzles, with good fortune and persistence, we, too, will find the one that feels just right for us.

A daily choice: 

self-indulgence or simple joys.

Running an errand at a mall, we were a group of nuns looking after one another and laughing. And observing. I saw a mother hugging her crying child, a young woman laughing along with the blind man who held her arm. 

But mainly I saw self-engrossed people amidst the upscale shops and numerous eateries.

A woman mindlessly eating her lunch while flipping through a catalog. A well-dressed man striding by while venting angrily into his earbuds. A couple looking at the store displays while ignoring each other. People were spending money, shopping, dining—doing things that were supposed to make them happy. But they weren’t. Perhaps they sensed the futility of searching for happiness in possessions and self-indulgence. 

No happiness there. 

Where was it?

In the laughter between friends. In the eyes of a mother and her child. On the face of an elderly, blind man laughing with his companion. The observed happiness was not from any self-indulgence. It was from friendship and caring for others.