Kindness and Cherishing Others

Kindness is benefit; Motivation is irrelevant.

And you could add: "Unless you are omniscient, you don't know others' motivations anyway."

This is a gloss on some of the points from Eight Steps to Happiness by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

The point here is that if every kindness ever shown us, from our mother allowing us to be born from her body, through our upbringing, education, all the food we eat, etc., had to be given back, we would have nothing at all; we would not even exist. So it is totally illogical not to remember and be grateful for the kindness of others. If this isn't reason enough to constantly cherish all other living beings, what could be? It doesn't matter whether they intend to be kind to you, which you can't know anyway. Any benefit is kindness. Focusing on other's motives is self-cherishing. ("What do I get out of it?" "What have they done for me?)... What matters is that we have received benefit, which IS kindness, and love for others is the only logical response. It's all we need to know.

Some say they don't know what love is. Everyone knows what love is. Love is believing others are important, that their happiness is important, and wishing for them to be happy. If you think about it, you realize this is true. That's all it takes.