Dharma Practice - Commiserate with the Turtle in Trouble, Help the Sick Sparrow

"Working for the welfare of all beings means that you contrive to benefit all sentient beings, high and low.  In other words, you carefully investigate others's distant and near futures, and think of various means that will be the most congenial to their well-being.

Commiserate with a turtle in trouble, and take care of a sparrow suffering from injury. When you see the distressed turtle or watch the sick sparrow, you do not expect any repayment for your favor, but are moved entirely by your desire to help others.

Fools may think that if another's benefit is given priority, their own good must be lost.  This is not the case.  The practice of benefiting others is a total truth, hence it serve both self and others far and wide...

Therefore serve enemies and friends equally, and assist self and others without discrimination.   If you grasp this truth, [you will see that] this is the reason that even grasses and trees, wind and water are all naturally engaged in the activity of benefiting others, and your understanding will certainly serve others' benefit..."  Dōgen Zenji

Quoted in Eihei Dōgen: Mystical Realist
By Hee-Jin Kim, Taigen Daniel Leighton

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A Tibetan Lama's Insight into Doing Good for Others

Helpful Thoughts on Doing Good for Others

By Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Question (Helen): For months at a time, I can be tremendously active and capable of helping others. Inevitably, a difficult situation arises, and I despair of ever making any difference in the world whatsoever. I realize that good heart is the way to go, but how can I deal with these periods of burnout?

Answer (Rinpoche): Ideally, we serve others with pure heart, not expecting gratitude, payment or recognition. We accept complaints with equanimity and patiently continue, knowing that people don't always see the purpose of what we're doing. Though our actions may seem insignificant or unproductive, if our motivation is pure and we dedicate the merit expansively, we generate great virtue.

Though we may not accomplish what we set out to do, auspicious conditions and our ability to benefit others in the future will only increase. No effort is wasted; when someone witnesses our loving-kindness, he sees a new way of responding to anger or aggression. This becomes a reference point in his mind that, like a seed,will eventually flower when conditions ripen. Then when we dedicate the virtue, our loving kindness will extend to all beings.

We mustn't become discouraged if someone we are trying to help continues to experience the results of her negative karma and, in the process, creates the causes of future suffering. Instead, because she doesn't have enough merit for her suffering to end, we must redouble our efforts to accumulate merit and dedicate it to her and others. We're not out to accomplish selfish aims. We are trying to establish the causes of lasting happiness for all beings. By purifying our self-interest and mental poisons, we develop a heroic mind. The process of going beyond suffering and helping others do the same is the way of the Bodhisattva."

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Pema Chodron - "We Can Still Be Crazy"

"Lovingkindness—maitri—toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy, we can still be angry. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. 

Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest."

Pema Chodron, "We Can Still Be Crazy"

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The Metta Sutta - The Sutta of Loving-kindness

May all beings be happy!

May all be joyous and live in safety!

Let no one deceive another, nor despise another, as weak as they may be.

Let no one by anger or by hate wish evil for another.

As a mother, in peril of her own life, watches and protects her only child, thus with a limitless spirit must one cherish all living beings.

Love the world in its entirety -- above, below and all around, without limitation, with an infinite goodness and with benevolence.

While standing or walking, sitting or lying down, as long as one is awake,
Let one cultivate Loving-Kindness.

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