A Gift of Dharma for 6.1.10
Today’s quote is yet another from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, whom I first quoted and wrote a short biography for in this post. This is it, from His Holiness’s book The Compassionate Life (Wisdom Publications, 2001), pg. 33-34:
In the Buddhist teachings on altruism and compassion, certain expressions are used such as “Disregard your own well-being and cherish the well-being of others.” Such exhortations may sound intimidating, but it is important to understand these statements regarding the practice of voluntarily sharing someone else’s pain and suffering in their proper context. Fundamentally, the basis on which you can build a sense of caring for others is the capacity to love yourself.
Love for yourself does not arise from some great debt you owe yourself. Rather, the capacity to love yourself is based on the fact that we all naturally desire happiness and want to avoid suffering. And once you recognize the love in relation to yourself, then you can extend it to other sentient beings. Therefore, when you find statements in the teachings such as “Disregard your own well-being and cherish the well-being of others,” you should understand them in the context of training yourself according to the ideal of compassion. This is important if we are not to indulge in self-centered ways of thinking that disregard the impact of our actions on others.
