In the current issue of Tricycle, Pema Chodron explains that developing compassion for others requires "unlimited friendliness" toward ourselves. "When we wish to benefit others, we start by developing warmth or friendship for ourselves," she writes. This points to what, to me, is one of the great paradoxes of Buddhist practice -- working with the self to cut through the delusion of self.
When we first begin to work toward realizing that our seemingly fixed and continuing self is a kind of delusion, it's common to think we have to do away with or run away from this self. But no matter how hard we try, the old, lumpy, stumbling self-thing is still there, getting in the way. Wherever you go, there you are.
Pema Chodron writes that to develop metta for yourself is to develop an unconditional acceptance of yourself. It also means "trusting oneself--trusting that we have what it takes to know ourselves thoroughly and completely without feeling hopeless, without turning against ourselves because of what we see." This is the foundation for compassion for others, she says.
The Tricycle article is behind a subscription firewall, but Pema Chodron makes some similar points in this Shambhala Sun article from 1998.
This is a process of continually stepping into unknown territory. You become willing to step into the unknown territory of your own being. Then you realize that this particular adventure is not only taking you into your own being, it's also taking you out into the whole universe. You can only go into the unknown when you have made friends with yourself. You can only step into those areas "out there" by beginning to explore and have curiosity about this unknown "in here," in yourself.
Paradoxically, when we don't accept and trust ourselves we fall into the habit of protecting the self, of maintaining the walls of delusion.
Last spring an article about a Zen teacher in psychotherapy that was published in the New York Times Sunday magazine made quite a buzz. It is unfortunate that the writer of the article, Chris Brown, didn't understand Buddhist teachings on no-self and mis-represented the issue of the delusion of self. So you have to read between the lines a bit to pick up what was really going on.
In brief, by dealing with the self as a "malignant growth" to be surgically removed, the Zen teacher went overboard into emptiness without learning to trust and accept himself, and this led eventually to a dark spiritual crisis that he resolved, in part, through psychoanalysis.
Your self may be a temporary construction, but it is the temporary construction that experiences life and feels compassion for all the other temporary constructions. Trying to "surgically remove" yourself -- from what, exactly? -- seems to be just another dualism.
Good analysis of the roshiis dilemma.
In a blog format these points tend to whiz on past as articles pile on top of them. This topic needs to be highlighted and drawn out in its’ own thread.
Extremely pertinent and a big help to me also.
Peme Chodron is just great and further proves my point that the best western teachers tend to be women.
Told ya I wasn’t misogynistic. Merely misanthropic.
Ditto on Pema Chodron. What I most appreciate about her is that she has the courage to discuss, as a Westerner, the actual experience of embracing Buddhist thought, and that it is not always fun or pleasant. She attracts a wide following and probably could have made a fortune by now feeding people New Age pablum and slopping together self-improvement books, yet she consistently offers the real deal and remains true to the monastic way of life. Nice to know people like that still exist.
yes, this is the beautiful paradox of buddhist practice: we use a desire to transcend desire in order to do so, we use an understanding of ignorance to leapfrog (or slide) into cognizance and then realization of emptiness . . . much of this is contained in the simple of words of HHDL: “if you must be selfish, be wisely selfish” . . .
and Barbara, you are spot-on, we keep embracing, opening our arms, opening our minds, wider and wider . . . to push away is to be “had” by it, but we keep including, accepting, getting wider and bringing all “in” . . .
keep up the good work, you cyber dharma-bum!