Lighting the Way — How to Help Without Hurt
You’ve probably heard the well-known tale of the lazy fisherman. It goes like
A wealthy businessman went to the sea and saw a fisherman sitting lazily. The businessman got irritated seeing someone wasting their time, so he approached the fisherman and ask why he wasn’t out catching more fish.
“I catch enough to feed my family for today,” the fisherman replied.
Frustrated by the fisherman’s loser attitude, the businessman explained that if the fisherman caught more fish, he could buy a bigger boat and hire other fishermen to work for him. Eventually, he could get rich and retire.
The fisherman then asked, “What would I do after I retire?”
The businessman replied with a smile, “You could have plenty of time to relax, be with your family, and do anything you want.”
The fisherman laughed and said, “That is what I am doing right now.”
People may react differently about this story:
- Some prefer the businessman’s style
- Some prefer the fisherman’s style
- Some prefer neither or both
This story illustrates a common pitfall in our attempts to help others. The businessman, believing he’s offering valuable advice, fails to consider that his definition of success might not align with the fisherman’s values or life goals.
This article examines a very important concept that we should know before offering our help to anyone.
The Great Remembering Cycle
A infant and a sage are alike, they are innocent, intuitive and free from attachments.
What make them different is only their level of “experience”. A sage is full of experience, while an infant is none of experience.
Nothingness travels through life, the process of the great remembering, to become everything.
This cycle explains an important aspect of human life. We can observe how something we once deemed good turns out to be wrong, while what we used to consider bad becomes a necessary event that forms the foundation of our fulfilling life.
Ego Expansion
In this phase, we seek to prove that we are something. It is the motivation behind most of our life choices from youth to middle age. For example, we compete in school to prove academic excellence. We strive at work to demonstrate social competence and worthiness. We perform experiment of being something.
Shadow Recognition
At some point in life, our experiments start to show negative results. We realize that we embody ALL the traits we used to run from. We are not as competent as we thought. We are as much failures as we are successes.
Acceptance
At this stage, our life recovers from the darkness. We admit all aspects of ourselves and finally remember who we truly are.
We are neither something nor the other thing. We are nothing and can be everything by continuing to collect experiences.
Forgetting
The absolute everything can no longer gain experience and therefore gradually forgets itself, becoming nothing once again, and the cycle repeats, on and on.
Where is the fisherman?
With this knowledge, we can see that the lazy fisherman may be at any stage of the cycle. We can never know which stage he’s in; only he knows.
Fisherman in Ego Expansion
If this fisherman is in this stage, his laziness is his ego: something he’s experimenting to be. For example, he might be trying to challenge the current of capitalism.
Fisherman in Shadow Recognition
If he’s in this stage, he may be stuck with his inability and cannot move on yet. He still wishes to be something different but finds himself unable to change.
Fisherman in Acceptance
If he’s in this stage, he has already resolved his inner struggle. He can be anything, but he chooses to be a lazy fisherman with utmost freedom and understanding. This choice makes him unwavering in the face of the businessman’s criticism. He also understands that the businessman is not wrong.
Both of them are right according to their own position in the cycle of recollection.
Premature Let Go
Understanding this Recollection cycle teaches us an important lesson.
When we think we’re helping people, we may actually be interrupting their recollection process.
For example, a scholar who has learned many lessons about what works and doesn’t work may desperately try to prevent people from walking in the “wrong” direction. A monk might try to teach children about the importance of letting go. A friend may lecture you about how harmful your fixation on some ideal is.
Without understanding the recollection process, our thinking is limited to views of absolute rightness or wrongness, complicating other people’s journey to remember their true selves.
Helping Hands
In this vast ocean of life, we need not forbid others from swimming, fearing they might drown. Instead, we can become lighthouses, guiding from afar, casting life buoys when the waters gets rough.
Our hands, like branches, extend to those in need; it’s their choice whether to grasp or let the wind carry them elsewhere.
We put up signposts along life’s twisting roads, markers of our own journeys through right and wrong. Yet, the traveler alone decides which road to tread.
On this winding river of personal growth, we are but boats floating side by side. We offer strength to those going through hard times, share tales of our own journeys as gentle hints. But we cannot shield others from the rain, nor steer their ships.
We are companions in the great remembering, We can hold up a light in the darkness, yet each soul must kindle its own flame of truth.
