If you have a great many desires, you will gradually eliminate them one by one, until you allow certain desires to dominate and the others to die away.
Formerly, when I would feel a desire to understand someone, or myself, I would take into consideration not actions, in which everything is relative, but wishes. Tell me what you want and I'll tell you who you are.
We must recognize that all beings want the same thing we want. This is the way to achieve a true understanding, unfettered by artificial consideration.