There is no one who is not already the iron ox, but we hide it from ourselves, to endless trouble. There is another way to live, and with practice we can unfold it to ourselves and grow it, like corn and beans, like apples, like rice.
Buddha is said to have been asked by King Bimbasara to differentiate his followers from the followers of other teachers and assigned the design to Ananda, with the instructions to make it like a rice field. The idea is that those wearing Buddha's robe nourish the whole world with the dharma, as farmers nourish the world with rice.
You can of course be a helper without calling it Buddhism or wearing a robe; Buddhists are a relatively small subset of the world's helpers. I was drawn in by the similarities of the Four Sights and Four Noble Truths to the human struggle with biotic entropy. Thinking about that happens to be my hobby.
But anyone who notices that the world tends toward chaos and suffering and resolves to do anything about it is what I mean by a helper; and these are to be encouraged, I think, in any way possible.
This is not a matter of scale. Jesus talked about the woman who brought, like, two cents, to the temple. A gift need not even be intended as kind to be a gift; children playfully put mud in Buddha's begging bowl and he reverently handed it off to be used in maintaining his hut.
Dogen, in the Shushogi, mentions someone giving a blade of grass. The Shushogi is a pastiche of things Dogen wrote, some of it taken out of context, but it's functional, and is the official statement of faith and practice for the Soto School of Zen Buddhism. The whole passage with the blade of grass is all about generosity:
There are four kinds of wisdom that benefit living beings: giving, kind speech, beneficial deeds, and cooperation.
That is, giving (donating), giving kind speech, giving beneficial deeds, and giving cooperation.
Here's the rest of the passage:
These are the practices of the vow of the bodhisattva. “Giving” means not to covet. In principle, although nothing is truly one’s own, this does not prevent us from giving. Do not disdain even a small offering; its giving will surely bear fruit. Therefore, we should give even a line or a verse of the dharma, sowing good seeds for this life and other lives. We should give even a penny or a single blade of grass of resources, establishing good roots for this world and other worlds. The dharma is a resource, and resources are the dharma. Without coveting reward or thanks from others, we simply share our strength with them. Providing ferries and building bridges are also the perfection of giving. Earning a living and producing goods are fundamentally nothing other than giving.
"Kind speech” means, when meeting living beings, to think kindly of them and offer them affectionate words. To speak with a feeling of tenderness toward living beings, as if they were one’s own infant, is what is meant by kind speech. We should praise the virtuous and pity the virtueless. Kind speech is fundamental to mollifying one’s enemies and fostering harmony among one’s friends. Hearing kind speech to one’s face brightens one’s countenance and pleases one’s heart. Hearing kind speech indirectly leaves a deep impression. We should realize that kind speech has the power to move the heavens.
"Beneficial deeds” means to devise good ways of benefiting living beings, whether noble or humble. Those who encountered the trapped tortoise and the injured bird simply performed beneficial deeds for them, without seeking their reward or thanks. The foolish believe that their own interests will suffer if they put the benefits of others first. This is not the case. Beneficial deeds are one, universally benefiting self and others.
“Cooperation” means not to differentiate; to make no distinction between self and others. It is, for example, like the human Tathagata who was the same as other human beings. There is a way of understanding such that we identify others with ourselves and then identify ourselves with others. At such times self and other are without boundaries. The ocean does not reject any water; this is cooperation. It is because of this that water collects and becomes an ocean.
Might we not all consider devising ways of cooperating in kindly communication and beneficial action? There is a world of hurt; what's to stop us from making it a world of healing?
-- shonin