Post #167: The Magic in Helping

4 Jan. 2025

“Give me my choice and I would rather, for my own happiness and self-enjoyment, have a friendly, humane heart than possess all the other virtues of Demosthenes and Philip united.”

—David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix IV

     God helps those who help themselves, it has been said—truly perhaps, though incompletely. The Dhamma, I would like to add, not just as a matter of doctrine but personal conviction, helps those who help others.

     The Dhamma is no active deity, but the impersonal order of things, the law of nature in its most comprehensive and profound sense; and to the Buddhists it is a bedrock of their faith that at the level of karma—that is to say volitional action—every move will meet with a counter-move sooner or later in a kind of cosmic recompense, although this needs to be understood in terms of natural consequences only, not judgments from on high. The effective principles are intentions and motivations, not outward events, and karmic effects may be difficult to spot from the outside, or to trace at all, since they may be subtle or ensue after very long delays, even to the point of manifesting themselves only in future lives. (To make the picture even more complex, karmic seeds can also be prevented from ripening, or at least mitigated, by later action in the contrary direction, see my note on Nyanaponika Thera in #133.)

     Nothing but fanciful speculation, the critic may scoff; spiritual humbug dressing itself up as if it could lay claim to being a science of the mind. Never mind that buddhas are said to be capable of perceiving karmic streams directly, which is admittedly too doubtful for anyone of lesser stature to pass for more than an article of faith. But hold on a minute: is the leap of faith in crediting the unique power of intentions really quite so great? Even if the karmic logic in the strictest sense may be too intangible and elusive to be demonstrated to the critic’s satisfaction, is it not true that we make the world by the thoughts and motives that underlie our actions? And when we conduct ourselves under the influence of sensible and salubrious principles, do  the results not tend to bear us out—perhaps not as uniformly and perfectly as the purist may demand, but still regularly enough?

     Let us set aside, for the moment, the full cosmic equation in all its supposed inevitability,* and let the proposition stand as “merely” a broad psychological generalization, a well-substantiated rule of thumb about observable human behavior. Then can we not agree (far from merely) that nothing tends to elicit sympathy and good-will from others as reliably as good intentions, while nothing repels and vitiates amity like the exposing of bad ones? If there is a fundamental law of human sociability, then is it not this? Perhaps a very few, very unfortunate individuals really do stand beyond its reach, beyond the pale; but as soon as we are sure of it, we call them dangerous psychopaths and avoid them as much as possible. They are excluded almost by definition from the human community as we normally understand it.

     Not that good intentions are sufficient by themselves, of course. The road to hell is said to be paved with them, though I take that to be more a political warning than a fact of personal life. In our everyday interactions, it is bad intentions that lead the way to hellish situations more inescapably than anything else. Good intentions may miscarry, to be sure, but they will normally be forgiven if they are found genuine; bad intentions, on the other hand, may succeed for a while, but they spoil everything, every time, as soon as they are revealed, which they usually are, even if can take a while.

     Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his inspiring though perhaps somewhat over-tidy essay on “Compensation” (1841), bemourns how foolishly we obsess over not getting our deserts in this word, even though such an outcome seemed to him quite impossible, even inconceivable. We worry endlessly about being taken advantage of, cheated or short-changed by others; yet, while we fret over every penny, we miss the most salient truth, the dollar as it were—namely that while we may receive what we ask, superficially, from our interactions in this self-centered spirit, we forgo something else that we want and need as much, or more (whether we are aware of it or not), namely a deeper kind of connection and human happiness that must elude us as long as we think mostly about getting, or giving in exchange, but little about giving freely. Were we less preoccupied with having our way, we might notice how much more satisfying it can be to do things for others, as against the often paltry results, in the end, of doing things for ourselves alone, or nearly so. Thus we manage to cheat ourselves more consistently than anyone else could hope to do.** You can fool some people, sometimes; but you may be able to fool yourself almost all the time, if you put your mind to it.

     But others must be expected to disappoint us, the scoffer may protest. Maybe so; but that is why the Gospel on the Mount reminds us not to let the left hand know what the right is doing, and why the Bhagavad Gita makes so much of letting go the fruits of one’s actions. The returns on well-intentioned doings will come surely enough, but not if one is watching like a hawk over the ledgers. Clinging to expected results in this manner deprives our interactions of precisely that wholesome content, the element of pure good will, that is the most reliable attractor of well-merited recompense from a more spiritual point of view. Granted, we may indeed fail to come out ahead, or fall behind, despite our best efforts, owing to ill luck or, what is much worse, faithless players. Are we, then, supposed to relish being played for suckers? Not at all; it’s just that if, instead of quietly enjoying the unobvious but real gains of doing the right thing, we choose to adopt the bad faith for which we blame others, we will not come out ahead, but end up defaulting in a currency that is no less precious for being difficult to count and enter item by item into a balance sheet.

     To put it most simply, helping others, when done in the right spirit, will make us feel a lot better (in the longer run at least) than helping only ourselves—a truth as elementary as it remains underappreciated in the world, almost as if it were an esoteric guarded secret accessible only to a chosen few.*** “Ah,” the modern cynic may now jump in with glee, “you have just given yourself away: what you are proclaiming with such fanfare is nothing but another kind of selfishness! Call it higher all you want, but at bottom you are still telling us to help others because it is good for us, and what is that but self-help in disguise? You aren’t really advancing the case for genuine magnanimity one bit, but only the advantages of an implied reciprocity that makes tacit investments of what are presented as selfless gifts!” (Plenty of economists will even go so far as to insist, in all textbook sincerity, that there is no such thing as a gift strictly speaking, only an invitation to exchange on uncertain and possibly disadvantageous future terms. The same type, incidentally, can have real trouble seeing why cash by electronic transfer is not universally appreciated by wives on wedding anniversaries.) Thus, with a quick and easy wave of the hand, all benevolence and generosity of heart gets brushed off the face of the earth, leaving calculating selfishness to reign uncontested, supposedly, as will be revealed to anyone who is clever enough to see through the many virtuous disguises and deflections in which self-interest appears in the world. (Some enthusiasts of the Darwinian schools will even insist that it could not be otherwise as a matter of evolutionary principle.)

     Yet such seemingly triumphant dismissals can be answered quite simply, namely by the insistence that a spirit of mutual good offices is better for both sides and that the merits of such interactions are in no way diminished by the fact that givers may benefit along with the recipients. Why should it detract from the goodness and rightness of my doings that they are also advantageous and enjoyable to me, perhaps not always on the surface, but in a deeper sense than meets the eye? Granted, there have been a few especially celebrated luminaries of the mind, somewhat less adept at the truths of the heart, who made a point of insisting that the measure of all morality must be nothing other than imperious duty, as if admirable inclinations devalued actions by making them more heartfelt and spontaneous. (Not surprisingly, such characters have also been known to walk the streets of their towns with such compulsive regularity that their neighbors could set their clocks by them, and to sign their missives to crowned heads with some of the most servile professions of devotion in the history of Western letters.) So far as the Buddhists are concerned, nobody ever said that you should make yourself wretched in your showy prostrations before this or that “imperative” duty. The spirit of love and service, of carrying one another’s burdens, is not meant to be a painful sacrifice, but a more joyful and satisfying way to live. Or so the sages have proclaimed for thousands of years to an incredulous mankind.

     If you wish to put the proposition to the test with your own life as the wager, then try it out and see whether you can make yourself happier by more narrowly self-regarding means. Give the unhallowed answer to the ancient question whether you are your brother’s keeper, and see where it gets you. The Buddhists will wish you well on your journey of discovery even if it veers off the Path temporarily: whatever dead-ends may lie ahead, you are your own master and must come to your own conclusions, by your own often painful experience. So go and experiment with what seems best to you,  and if you can find something that really does make for a better life than the usual well-behaved prescriptions, then congratulations and all the more power to you! May you find what lasting happiness you can wherever it is available to you, provided only that it is real.

     It should go without saying that proper helping does not mean foisting one’s good offices on others who do not welcome them. To “help” where no help is wanted amounts not to merit but folly; even brick walls that cause harm are better not broken down by dashing one’s head against them. Nor should any of the above be taken to imply that the need for skillful means, moderation, and common sense is in any way abated just because one means well and wishes sincerely to make oneself helpful. To do so effectively cannot be a matter of a good heart alone, but requires a good head also. As Hume continues in the passage quoted in the epigraph, so far as the regard of the world is concerned (rather than one’s own sense of happiness and contentment), a moderate share, at least, of good sense and sound judgment carries as much weight, or more, than even the best intentions in the world, and rightly so.

     Unskillfulness, immoderation, and the usual foibles and follies to which we are liable as human beings may usually be forgiven when they go hand in hand with commendable motives; but of course that’s not to say we care about those intentions and nothing else. The rich man in the fable who was told to give it all away was being tested, not instructed; if he were too ready to do so, dropping everything he had previously accumulated with such effort, the Buddhists would be more concerned about his state of mind than if he became inclined to share with others in a more gradual and moderate way. Sudden transports of unsustainable enthusiasm make for grand gesturing, not commitment to a lifelong path. The Middle Way would commend the spirit of giving thus expressed, but remind the enthusiast that it’s a long, long way to Tipperary, best traveled by walking steadily, not sprinting for a spell, getting too winded, and giving up from exhaustion.

     The conviction that it is undoubtedly better to help others than not to (while cultivating good judgment and common sense) and that we should not keep tabs too closely on our credits, may be smiled at as incorrigibly naïve. I would smile back, not very bothered by the diagnosis. Even if it were the case that my belief in the innocent magic of helping is somewhat simple-minded, I would rather be gullible than more sophisticated in the manner of the modern cynic or the perennial fox in human guise. None of which is to presume anything, I hasten to add, about how helpful I have managed to make myself in the course of my days. My personal record is not at issue here; I am not talking about taking stock or drawing up report cards of any kind, only about the general orientation I would recommend in life, for one’s own good as well as that of others.

     Nor is there anything very original in a message that parents have probably sought to inculcate in their children since the beginnings of human time. Yes, one may quibble with complicated details and imagine all manner of arcane cases in which helping turns out to be harmful for this or that reason. I am not concerned here with such high intellectual proceedings, but with something that most of us feel to be true intuitively even if we usually fail to live by its strictures. It’s not my place to recall anyone to better behavior, only to encourage a little more self-reflection about a vital dimension of human life. If things look otherwise to you, then do what you must, or what you think best—only be ready to pay the price, which cannot be eluded, upon closer inspection, any more than the harvest will be kept from you, for better or for worse, if you keep sowing and watering.

     (For Jennifer, with gratitude.)

*As Emerson put it: “The world looks like a multiplication table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you.” (“Compensation,” Essays, 1841)

**Emerson again: “Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss.”

***Thus Alfred Adler (Charakterlehre 2.1 in his Menschenkenntnis): “The very mood of giving, supporting, and helping automatically brings with it an equanimous and harmonious state of mind, while those who are oriented towards taking usually carry scattered minds, are dissatisfied and always obsessed with what they still need to accomplish and acquire in order to become happy.” It sounds like overly credulous hocus-pocus until you’ve observed the dynamic up close in your own mind.