What are you going to do if you’re one of those big-hearted people who weep when you see a cat suffer, who bursts into tears when you hear about children suffering? But then get upset and get depressed.
You have compassion, great, but you also get upset. You don’t get angry and want to punch the people, but you internalize it and get depressed. What to do about that? This is a difficulty, you know?
There are some people who when they see problems outside, they’ll get angry – this is my bit. I mean, less these days, hopefully, but when I used to be an old political activist, when I saw problems, I’d be out there with my sleeves rolled up: you know, bring it on, baby!
In a way, that can give you courage. I didn’t get overwhelmed or depressed by problems – I thought I’d go and change the world. That’s foolish, but still there’s some optimism there.
But good-hearted people, you tend to get depressed when you see bad things, isn’t it? You’re overwhelmed by the suffering, and so you want to put your head in the sand: you can’t bear to watch the news, can’t bear to talk about the suffering because it’s just too much for you.
What are you going to do? It’s very interesting: I always quote Martin Luther King, he blew my mind: he said, “It’s good to find fault, it’s good to see the problems out there, but then you say, what can I do to help?”
One kind of person will get depressed and not want to look at problems, or a person like me will want to punch people in the nose. Neither of those, okay? What we’ve got to do is be realistic: this is the way the world is.
Some of us have the view of karma, and at least we have an answer to the question: why all this suffering? But even if you don’t have that view, even if you don’t know why there’s all this suffering, it doesn’t matter. Just do what we can. I think this is the most important point: do what we can one step at a time.
Now, if you can go tomorrow to one country and solve all their problems and make them rich and give them all food and take away their pain, I’ll pay your airfare – I promise, so please you go. But what if you can’t? We know 99% of the time, even when it’s a mouse who’s suffering, what can we do? Sometimes not much.
Don’t get depressed about it, and don’t get angry about it – neither of those – but keep this action aspect: all each of us can do is what we can do.
If you’re a clever person and you’ve got hundreds of millions of dollars – like Bill Gates, let’s say, who gives billions of dollars and then does all these massive projects all over the world – go for it; if you can do that, go for it. But if you’ve got no money and you’ve got only two hands and you see one ant who’s suffering, try and help the ant; you see one mouse who’s suffering, try and help the mouse; you see your next-door neighbor needs something, try and help your next-door neighbor.
Yes, you read the newspapers, you read your iPad, and it is overwhelming, but you can say, “Okay, that is suffering. If I could, I would do something.” You’ve got to have a stable mind to do this: not get overwhelmed by it or not get angry and want to kill everybody – they’re the two options we think we have, you know?
All you can do is what you can: save one mouse maybe. And then maybe you can save two mice, then you might get a friend and put some money together – and suddenly you’ve started a little project and now you can help more mice!
I tell you, that’s how our prison project started: it was one person. I was editing Mandala magazine, back in the ’90s when I was based in California, living at Land of Medicine Buddha where FPMT office was. It was 1995, I think, ’96, and I got a letter from this young prisoner.
I always tell this story. This young fellow had read a book by Lama Yeshe and in it was the address of Mandala. I was the editor, the letter came to my desk – that’s like your mouse, you know, that’s your ant.
Don’t think, “Who’s going to save that ant?” It’s your ant, baby! You save it! Who’s going to save that mouse? It’s your mouse. Who’s going to help that homeless person in front of you? You can. Give them five dollars. Do what you can, see what’s in front of you – seeing that person: that’s your karmic appearance.
Well, that’s what happened. This letter came to my desk. He wrote a letter, it was very moving. He was a young man, twenty or nineteen, he told me he’d been in gangs since he was eleven, in prison since he was twelve; he now had three life sentences; he read Lama Yeshe, he was moved by the talk of compassion – can you help me?
What could I do? I looked in my pocket: I was getting a couple hundred dollars a month, Mandala had no budget. . . Again, you can either get angry – this poor man, how dare, blah blah blah – or you can just put your head in the sand again. No! I thought okay, what can I do? So I sent him a book.
Within a year, forty people were writing. I got a bit overwhelmed, another letter would come and I’d think, “Oh my God, how can I do this?” But you allow it to grow one step at a time.
I didn’t think, “Oh, I’ve got to start a big project called Liberation Prison Project and a four-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year budget and nine full-time staff.” I would have fainted if I’d thought that! No, I sent one book to this one man who asked.
What I’m getting at – this is my point – as soon as you do something, you get confidence. Even saving one ant, you get confidence, it lifts you: you don’t feel so hopeless because you know you can do something.
You’re only saving one mouse, but you can feel good about it, and then when you feel good you’re optimistic, when you feel good you’re confident. If you do nothing and just despair and look the other way, you just get more and more depressed, you know?
It takes courage, but it’s logical if we can understand it.