Loving Oneself

Loving Oneself

FPJ BureauUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 03:17 AM IST
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Problems and happiness do not come from outside. The creator of problems and happiness is oneself. Therefore, with this mind all our problems can be stopped and we can achieve temporal day-to-day happiness, ultimate happiness and full enlightenment.

The problems of both non-religious people, those who do not have any faith, who do not meditate, and of the religious people who externally take the form of the teachings, doing prayers and so forth, even meditating, come from not understanding the meaning of loving oneself. One should give freedom to oneself, love oneself.

In Buddhism, particularly in Mahayana Buddhism, the best way of loving oneself is to pull out the root of all problems, which is right in one’s own heart: the ego, the self-centred mind. So, if one lets go of cherishing the I, then it doesn’t matter what situation one is experiencing, the problem becomes non- existent.

The minute before there was such a serious problem, like gloom, like a mountain; but the minute you let go of the problem that makes you think ‘I am going to kill myself, there is no other solution, I can’t move’, then the problem doesn’t exist. It was so bad, but the minute you let go of it, the problem doesn’t exist. The person still doesn’t love you, doesn’t treat you well, treats you badly – this is the same – but since you let go of the ‘I’, you no longer experience it as a problem. And changing one’s own mind certainly can affect the other person’s mind also, to help bring change and to stop their emotional negative thought.

Without talking about the long-term result of enlightenment, what effect immediately comes into your heart by letting go of the self-centered mind? The result is peace, happiness, satisfaction. With bodhicitta you have fulfillment in your heart, you see life as more meaningful. Even if you don’t know lots of dharma, if you let go of the root of the problems of life, if you let go of what makes you cry all the time inside your heart like a baby, “I’m not happy, I’m not happy, I’m not happy,’ you can find happiness and satisfaction. No matter how much one learns Buddha-dharma, no matter how much the education expands externally with words and meanings, if the mind is always crying inside the heart ‘I’m not happy’, then ‘I’ becomes the main concern in life.

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