“I live and die and all that’s left is what I did while I was here,” is a dangerous hole to go down.

Of course, but it’s the only hole we have.

Professions fall apart. Family falls apart. Housing markets burst. Loved ones stop loving. People die. Life takes its turns and the identity you’ve built on being “right” and doing “good” face-plants on the concrete.

Yes, life is full of suffering. It’s up to you how you deal with it. While you are face down on the concrete, you must grieve your losses and then get back up again. The first noble truth is easy. Infants figure it out immediately. It takes the rest of your life to work through the other truths and that will take enormous courage.

People try to duck out of it with God or drugs or nihilism. If they want to do that, nobody can stop them. It’s their choice. But if you’d rather not go that route and have a good life with less suffering, then you have to get back up off the concrete again and again and do what needs doing.

Because the story of the Samaritan didn’t really address the concept of ‘enabling.’ The idea that helping can be hurting.

It’s always best to err on the side of compassion and kindness toward others. Since I do a lot of “helping” I ask myself the enabling question a lot. The best answer I’ve come up with so far is this: Does helping them hurt me? If no, then help them. If yes, then I’m going to far.

I’m guessing she’d prefer to not drag the identity she’s currently heaving up the alleyways all the way to the grave.

If she survives then she will have learned what doesn’t work. She will have learned how bad it can get. She will have learned survival and recovery. None of those are bad things. Because of the kindness you have shown her, she may return to that alley some day and tell some other woman. “I’ve been here. I remember this place. I left. So can you.”

Buddhism *IS* a religion.

I recently wrote an article on this very topic “How the Buddha and science became BFFs”