"From the cradle to the grave, other people do things for us, even if we think we are neglected and unloved. If they had not helped us, especially when we were babies, we would never have survived. We continue to survive because other people are still helping to maintain our world. Whether we think our upbringing was good or bad, people provided us with some kind of education and made sure we didn't go hungry. Practically all of the pleasure, joy, and happiness that we experience come to us because of the presence or activities of others. The food we eat is available to us because many thousands of people are involved in producing, packaging, and distributing it. The same applies to the water we drink, the clothes we buy, the electricity and gas we use, and any number of other things. Waiters bring us food in restaurants, hotel receptionists greet us, sometimes even by name, and bus drivers take us to our destination and exchange pleasantries with us. We must rely on others if we are to have any quality of life. It's not only those near and dear to us toward whom we should feel grateful, although the kindness of our loved ones often goes unrecognized the most.

"Our habituated responses are disempowering, because they make everything look and feel as if it were working against us. If we can shift our focus from our rigid, narrow, and habituated points of view, we will empower our ability to embrace situations in a new way so that every situation will start to seem more workable. Because we tend to think other people are taking advantage of us whenever they get the opportunity, we become unceasingly self-protective and suspicious. We need, therefore, to remind ourselves, over and over again, not to take anything for granted and to appreciate the kindness of others.

"There will always appear to be circumstances, situations, and people that create difficulties and obstacles for us. This slogan specifically instructs us to think about the kindness of others when we are confronted with negative situations, remembering that we only mature spiritually and psychologically when we are tested. We should endeavor to think good thoughts about people who have in fact made our lives quite difficult at times and try to turn these negative situations to our own spiritual advantage, so that we become wiser and stronger. As Shantideva says:

" 'So like a treasure found at home,
'Enriching me without fatigue,
'All enemies are helpers in my bodhisattva work
'And therefore they should be a joy to me.'

"This is also true in relation to bad situations in general. The Kadampa masters say that every time we overcome an obstacle or an adversity, we become that much more intelligent and resilient, for it's the accumulation of diverse experiences that enriches our lives. Both Christian and Buddhist masters emphasize the importance of dealing with difficulties, instead of allowing them to get the better of us. This may be expressed in different ways and with different recommendations, but they all say that it's through difficulty that we grow. Saint John of the Cross describes what he calls the 'dark night of the soul,' exhorting people not to give in to the darkness but see it instead as a portent of light. In the same way, our difficulties shouldn't be viewed as something that will automatically destroy us. The metaphor used in the Kadampa teachings, again and again, is that the manure of experience becomes fertilizer for the field of bodhi (enlightenment). Dharmaraksita says, in The Poison-Destroying Peacock Mind Training:

" 'If we don't put on the armor of the bodhisattvas who
'willingly embrace others' ingratitude, happiness will
'never come
'to those in cyclic existence. Therefore, willingly accept all that
'is undesirable.'

"If we see that it is our response to difficulties that determines what kind of impact they have on our lives, we'll naturally begin to move toward a more meaningful engagement with our lives as they are. For example, blaming ourselves about our negative habits and mistakes often causes more unhappiness than the actual situation. It is also important to learn from the mistakes of others, so that we don't repeat their errors and compound our own confusion. If we think somebody has done something reprehensible, rather than blaming that person, we should pay attention to our own behavior and resolve not to imitate such actions. We may be constantly enraged by other people's behaviors, but if we examine our own responses, we'll often find that we've acted in the same way ourselves, but with a more lenient explanation of our own behavior. Keeping things in perspective through honest introspection is the way to heed the lojong emphasis on refraining from fixation on others. We'll then view the behavior of others more objectively and open up the possibility of learning something positive from them. Each of us has our own karmic history and has to suffer the karmic consequences of our actions — nobody gets away with anything. It is fruitless to set ourselves up as the arbiters of other people's actions, making judgments about what they do. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't take an interest in social issues, only that we should maintain our spiritual perspective. The only thing we really have any control over is our own experience, and this control is reinforced by learning how to deal with difficult circumstances and situations without anger or bitterness. Chandrakirti states:

" 'If you respond with anger when another harms you,
'Does your wrath remove the harm inflicted?
'Resentment surely serves no purpose in this life
'And brings adversity in lives to come.' ”