Not returning help to those who benefit us. 

If we completely forget the kindness of others and have no intention to repay them, we incur a secondary downfall.

The reality is this:  most of us are so self-absorbed that we don’t even realize all the different ways people provide us benefit, much less think to bother to repay their kindness.  When others are kind to us and we don’t even acknowledge it, they then can come to regret their kindness or at the least be less willing to help again in the future.  This helps neither them nor us.

The first step, therefore, in avoiding this downfall is to take the time to recall others’ kindness.  This is not something we do just once every 21 days when this meditation comes up in our lamrim cycle, but it is something we need to make a constant reflex.  Every time something comes our way, we “see” all the kindness that brought it to us.  If we see others’ kindness, the wish to repay it will naturally arise.

The second step is we need to realize nobody owes us anything.  The reason why we most often take for granted others’ kindness is we “expect” them to give it.  For example, with our parents, because we “expect” them to provide us with certain things, when they do provide us we consider it to be “normal” and so therefore we feel no gratitude.  In fact, we usually have nearly unlimited expectations of what they are supposed to do for us that no matter how much they do, they always fall short in our eyes.  Instead of being grateful for what they do do, we judge them for what they don’t do.  To be blunt, we are nothing but spoiled brats when we do this.  We may feel we are “justified” in having these expectations of them because they are cultural norms, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is nonetheless kind that they abide by them – even if imperfectly.  We have similar attitudes towards our teachers, our friends, our bosses – even others on the road or in the supermarket checkout line.  In all cases, such projected expectations are completely wrong.

Gen-la Losang advises we should “expect nothing from anyone ever.”  If we expect everything and others do something, we are disappointed and frustrated.  If we expect nothing and others do something, we are surprised and delighted, and thus naturally feel grateful.  If we expect nothing from anyone ever, then no matter what people do, it will exceed our expectations, and thus we will naturally feel grateful to them.

But it is not enough to just feel grateful, we need to repay others’ kindness towards us.  We need to look for opportunities to do so, not just passively wait for them to ask us for our help.  When they do ask, we should do so eagerly, not grudgingly.  We are even grateful that they give us a chance to repay their kindness.  I had a friend once who helped me out tremendously.  Many years later, I told this person what a positive effect they had had on my life and a I asked him what I could do to repay his kindness.  His answer was, “do the same for somebody else.  And if they later ask you how they can repay you back, give the same answer.  In this way, the kindness keeps going.”  I find this the most perfect answer.

Not relieving the distress of others. 

If we meet people who are beset with grief and have the opportunity to comfort them and yet do nothing, we incur a secondary downfall.

This downfall is really the mirror image of the earlier downfall about not helping others when we can do so.  Here, we are focused on relieving others of their suffering (acting on our compassion) as opposed to helping them in some way (acting on our love).  Ultimately, these are two sides of the same coin.

But once again, we need to be skillful.  We cannot approach others with our KadampaMan cape on with a “your savoir has arrived” attitude!  The best help is that given anonymously.  When we help others with some expectation for something in return, it destroys the virtue of our help and makes the person not want to accept our help for fear of later being obliged to us in some way.  We should also let go of any individual need for the person to change.  Very often we develop an aversion to deluded people and their actions, and our “helping them” is actually us trying to get them to stop their bothersome behavior.  They of course are not stupid, sense our selfish motivation, and therefore reject our help and advice.  Paradoxically, it is because we want others to change for the better that we have to completely let go of any need for them to do so.  Instead, we should think their deluded attitude serves us just fine because it gives us an opportunity to practice.  If they change, good for them; but from our side, we have no need for them to do so.