Not acting in accordance with the inclinations of others. 

When relating to others we should try to please them by conforming with their wishes whenever possible, unless of course their wishes are wrong and would lead to great suffering.  If we ignore the wishes of others without a good reason, we incur a secondary downfall.

As a general rule, we are here to serve.  Everything we do should be reduced to this basic practice.  In fact, there are no exceptions to it.  However, how we serve must be informed by a wisdom which understands what is actually helpful to the other person.  It has been discussed in earlier posts some of the circumstances under which “helping” somebody is actually doing them a disservice.  We need wisdom.

In the end, the test is very simple:  if other’s inclinations are harmful to themselves or to others, we should not go along with them.  If other’s inclinations are good, or at least neutral, then we should go along with them.  Often, of course, we don’t know, so we do our best and learn from our mistakes.  Where things can grow complicated is when our decisions and actions affect more than one person.  Very often people’s wishes and inclinations are in conflict with one another, so by going along with one person we are often going against somebody else.  So what should we do in such situations?  Quite simply, we try to maximize the aggregate benefit taking everybody concerned as equally important.  So we need to take the time to consider how our actions or decisions will affect everybody involved, and even if there will be some people who are made worse off, if more people are made even better off then we go forward.  Again, we never know for sure and so we need to be open to learn from our mistakes.

Ideally, of course, we should try find some third way that leaves everybody at least “no worse off” due to our decisions.  For example, if the gains from a decision truly outweigh the losses, then it should almost always be possible to transfer some of the gains to those who are made worse off so that at a minimum they are made “no worse off” after your transfer of gains than they would be if you never made your decision in the first place. 

Not praising the good qualities of others. 

We should rejoice and praise the good qualities of others.  If motivated by delusion we do not do so, we incur a secondary downfall.

Venerable Tharchin says just as our rejoicing in others’ good qualities creates the causes for us to acquire those good qualities ourself, so too criticizing others for their apparent faults creates the causes for us to acquire those same faults ourselves.  So quite literally, we are sabotaging ourself. 

Praising and rejoicing in others’ good qualities is by far the easiest way to acquire such qualities ourself.  How hard is it really to see good qualities in others and praise them for it?  Yet we almost never do so.  Most of the time our self-absorption is so extreme that we simply don’t see anything outside of ourself – we are too busy looking at ourself.  Most of the time our pride is so extreme that we simply don’t see any good qualities in anybody other than ourself.  When others praise somebody else, our mind immediately generates a “yes, but they also have … fault.”  These are terribly counter-productive habits. 

Instead, rejoicing in others good qualities helps inspire us to adopt them ourselves.  It makes the other person feel good about themselves and encourages them to continue their good deeds.  Our praising sets a good example of how we should relate to one another, thus helping change the inter-personal dynamics of all those around us.  Only good comes from it. 

As always, we need to be skillful with this.  Our praising should be legitimate – praising somebody for qualities they do not possess often is taken as shallow, contrived, or even manipulative.  It should also not be exaggerated because otherwise it will not be believed.  Our praising should also be free from any selfish concern – praising our boss, even if merited, with the intention of personal advancement is not Dharma, it is brown-nosing.  Likewise, we should be mindful to not create jealousy in others.  Sometimes we praise publicly, but if doing so will cause somebody else to become jealous, etc., then we should pick our time, place, and method accordingly.  We should also try have our praise be widespread.  The bottom line is everybody has good qualities and everybody has something they can teach us.  Find this in them, praise them for it, learn from them, and be grateful to them.  In many ways, pride is the worst delusion.  If we have every delusion, but we remain humble, we can learn from others and eventually overcome all our faults.  But if we have pride, we feel we have nothing to learn from others, and this closes the door to changing anything.  Systematically praising others breaks down our pride like no other method.  It softens our heart, opens our mind, and allows personal transformation to take place.