Don't help others to much.
Because helping someone
means stepping into their karma.
You must know when to stop.

Most people think helping
is always good.
The friend who keeps returning
to the same bad relationship.

The family member who keeps
making the same mistake.
The person who never seems
to learn. You give the advice.

You make the call. You bail
them out. They walk back into
the same fire and you walk
back home a little smaller
than before.

Zen teaches that the river
cannot lift the stone that
has chosen to sink.

You can flow around the stone.
You can flow over it.
Trying to lift what has chosen
not to be lifted is the fastest
way to drown your own current.

If your reminder wakes them up
that is their blessing.
If it does not that is their
fate. Some people are born
to understand. Some understand
only after suffering.
And some never understand in
their entire lives.

None of those three roads
belong to you. You can love
each one of them, but you
cannot walk their road for
them.

If someone cannot be lifted,
do not force it, or you will
be dragged down with them.
This is not coldness.
This is the deepest form
of respect.

You are honouring the dignity
of their own journey, even when
you wish it looked different.
Look at the world with compassion
and everyone seems pitiful.

Look at the world through karma,
And noone is pitiful at all.
Everyone is exactly where their
inner work has placed them.
That is not a punishment.
That is the system being honest.

Remember this. Stepping back from
someone's karma is not abandonment.
It is the boundary that lets both
of you keep walking.

thezenstoryteller