Once we start loving others, we will begin to find their suffering unbearable and the desire to help protect them from their suffering will naturally arise.

Our first instinct will be to jump in to rescue them by offering all sorts of Dharma advice about how they can change their mind. But this usually proves counter-productive. They can find our Dharma advice as blaming them for their troubles, giving a pass to all those harming them, or not understanding their external problems. Our advice can also sometimes come across as proselytizing or cult-like. This in turn causes them to reject the Dharma – advice they needed – and us.

So how can we help? There are six steps I have found helpful and can be used in almost any situation.

The first thing we need to do is become at peace with them suffering – we need to accept they are suffering and it does not disturb our peace of mind. It is important to make the distinction between attachment to our loved ones not suffering and compassion. Both find the suffering of others unbearable, but the former believes they need to be free from suffering for us to be happy. The latter is able to peacefully accept they are suffering without it diminishing in any way our desire to help. If we are attached to them not suffering, we then start trying to control them so they get better so we don’t suffer from them suffering. If we have compassion, our happiness or peace of mind does not depend upon them not suffering. So, like a good doctor, we can offer advice without needing them to follow it. We leave them free to make their own choices and to ignore our advice if they wish.

The second thing we need to do is find within ourself the delusions the other person appears to be suffering from in their problem. Mind is the creator of all. This means the others we perceive are nothing more than reflections of our own mind and karma. They appear to have these delusions because we still have the same delusions within our own mind. We can view them as a mirror of Dharma revealing back to us what still needs to be healed within our own mind. They are helping us “train in the first difficulty,” namely identifying our own delusions.

By removing their same delusions within our own mind three magical things happen. First, we then naturally show the best possible example to others of somebody who lives free from the delusions that trouble them. Second, by removing their delusions from our own mind, we will gain the wisdom to know how to do so, thus enabling us to offer better advice based upon personal experience. Third, their delusions will actually start to dis-appear because ultimately they are coming from our mind anyways. This is a special spiritual technology for helping others – it is a scientific method that will work for any who try it for long enough. At a minimum, by abandoing the delusions within our mind, we will become that much closer to enlightenment, the only real way we can provide lasting benefit to them.

The third step is we need to check, “what are they asking of me?” It’s quite possible they are asking for nothing from us, they don’t want us involved at all. If they are not asking, offering any advice or help is almost invariably counter-productive. They reject what we have to say and us. This does not help them, indeed it creates the conditions for them to create the karma of rejecting Dharma and us. If they are asking for something, we need to check, “do they just want me to compassionately listen or do they also want advice?” If we are not sure, we can simply ask. I would say 80% of the time, people just want us to listen and understand. Providing them a safe environment in which they can verbalize their struggles often gives them the space they need to process their difficulties and find their own solutions. It is particularly helpful to share back with them what we have heard and understood from their story, showing that we get it and their feelings about it are normal. In sharing back with them, try not to implicitly give them advice – remember, they are not asking for that. And if they don’t think we understand their problem, they will assume all of our advice is misplaced. So check in with them to see, “am I understanding your situation correctly?”

Fourth, if they are also asking for advice, after you have listened empathetically to their struggles and repeated back to them what you heard to demonstrate you understood their situation, we should first provide them practical advice for how to address the external dimensions of their problem. Remember, for them, their outer problem is their problem. They don’t know yet about the difference between the outer problem and the inner problem. There are almost always external things we can change which can make the external situation less bad or even a little better. Sometimes Dharma practitioners wrongly think there is some fault in also providing practical advice, as if we should only give Dharma advice. That’s ridiculous and the opposite of what Geshe-la encourages us to do. We help in every way we can, both practically and spiritually, depending upon the capacity of the other person.

In the fifth step, if they are open to it, you can begin to provide some advice on how they can address their inner problem – the delusions that are arising in their mind in relationship to the situation. You can do this according to the teachings on “training in the three difficulties” from the book Universal Compassion. First, help them identify the delusions within their mind. Since at present we lack the ability to read others minds, we need to be very skillful at this stage. If you did the second stage above well, you can simply share your own experience how when you find yourself in situations like theirs, your mind starts generating this or that delusion, suggesting perhaps something like that may also be happening in their mind. Pause to see if they relate to that. If they do, then you can move to the second of the three difficulties – applying the opponents to reduce the delusions. Help them accept it is normal that they have these delusions so they avoid falling into the extreme of beating themselves up or self-hatred. Delusions are not us, they are clouds in the sky of their mind. We are the sky itself. From the space of their pure potential, help them realize this difficult situation gives them an opportunity to grow internally in some way. Almost all good Dharma advice has this as its common denominator – remember, bodhichitta is the quintessential butter that comes from churning the milk of Dharma. Share your own stories about how you have dealt with similar inner difficulties and ways of thinking that have proven helpful for shifting your point of view. The external situation is still what it is, but instead of it being a problem, it is an opportunity to develop ourselves into a better person. Err on the side of giving them too little advice than too much that they can’t process. Very often, less is more. Finally, you can move to the third difficulty – applying the antidote of the wisdom realizing emptiness. Most people aren’t ready to view everything as a creation of their mind, but most people can accept that their opinion about the situation depends upon how their mind relates to it. That’s a good enough start.

When offering advice, especially to non-Dharma loved ones, it is very important to express yourself in language that they can accept and understand. Avoid Dharma jargon. Dharma words may mean something to you, but if they don’t have prior exposure to the Dharma teachings, it will mean almost nothing to them. Use analogies, examples, and wisdom that they can relate to based upon their life experience. The great Dharma translators are not just those in the past who went to India to bring back the Dharma to Tibet, they are every day Dharma practitioners who are able to transmit the essential meaning of the Dharma in ways people of the modern world can relate to and understand.

It is also quite important when giving advice that you have no personal need whatsoever for them to follow your advice. Leave them completely free to take it or leave it, without the slightest trace of emotional penalty if they don’t. If they feel manipulated into following your advice, they will most certainly rebel against it, defeating the whole purpose of offering advice in the first place. If they find your advice helpful, great; if not, that’s OK too – you can just empathize with their struggles and let them know you are there for them if they need you.

Sixth, finally, you can pray for them. Buddhas accomplish virtually all of their virtuous deeds through the power of their prayers and dedications. Since we are training to become Buddhas ourselves, we should do the same. We are spiritual people, so of course prayer is actually our principal method for helping others. We may not yet be Buddhas ourselves, but we know the Buddhas and if we make pure prayers with deep faith free from any attachment, they can definitely help. Generally speaking, we don’t emphasize making prayers that people’s external problems go away. We can, but it is very easy for that to lead to all sorts of attachment and aversion, grasping at the external situation as the real problem. Instead, we should direct the bulk of our prayers to helping them overcome their inner problem. We can pray that they find strength, compassion, and wisdom. Above all, people need wisdom. I have found the most effective prayer is to Dorje Shugden, “please bless their mind so that this situation becomes a powerful cause of their enlightenment.” Dorje Shugden wastes nothing. It may not be immediately obvious how he will do so, but we can be certain he is on the job. If we have unshakeable faith in Dorje Shugden we can be certain he is working to accomplish our pure prayer – if not in this life, in future lives. We can also pray that their situation becomes a cause of our own enlightenment so that we can one day help our loved ones perfectly.

We can use these six steps with virtually anybody – our kids, our family members, our friends, our students, our co-workers, and even sometimes somebody we see crying alone on a bench. At first, we might not be very good at it, but with practice and familiarity, it will get easier and flow more naturally.

Geshe-la says it is not enough to know the Dharma, we need skillful means. The above is what I have personally found useful as I have tried to help those I love in my life. I don’t pretend to have mastered the method or that it always works – or that it is the only way to help – but it is hard-won experience that I hope others find helpful.