Recognize all beings as kin helps us feel solidarity.

Remembering their kindness helps us feel gratitude.

Now repay their kindness. Identify all the contaminated motivations for giving - obligation, guilt, fear etc.

Now try to imagine coming from a place of basic trust over mistrust, abundance over scarcity and joy over obligation.

We are and have enough to give.

What a joy and honor it is to give back, and to make others happy.

What a sense of meaning is derived by paying it forward to the countless mother beings.

What little gesture of paying it forward or back can you take to incrementally stretch towards altruism?

Learn more about the gradual path to awakening with the Lam Rim Meditation course.