People ...mostly could not help themselves

Apart from the sense of bemusement, there was an inherent obligation to be kindly rather than indulgent – whenever the choice lay before me.  People were as they were – and mostly could not help themselves.  I had come to understand that I could—and therefore should—step outside the framework in which I had to take offence at anything. 

p350-351, Goodbye Forever: miscellaneous memoirs of an English Lama, Volume One Ngakpa Chögyam, Aro Books Worldwide, 2020, ISBN 978-1-898185-51-2