Student and Teacher

Together on the Path

Student. As an individual practitioner, what is an effective way to benefit the entire world?

TWR. It has something to do, first of all, with your openness, right? You really need to feel space to want to do that. The individual needs to be open, so open that there is not such a strong sense of individual there. Many times we say, I want to help my family, my country, my this, my that. So me and my are always attached to something. And in order to expand that, it has to do with the openness. This is what we talk about all the time in the teachings, being open. And when we look to expand our openness, we can ask ourselves:
Am I open to myself?
Am I open to my family?
Am I open to my friend?
Am I open to sangha members?
Am I open to strangers?
Am I open to the one who I don't care about?
Am I open to the one who bothers me?
Am I open to the one who I really do't like?

If you see these levels of openness there, then that's how you help.

So having a genuine sense of a strong ability to help would be based on how open you are, both in yourself and in relation to others. And how conscious you are in that expansion of openness, from in to out, from easy to difficult, from normal to not so normal.