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Dearest Readers,
I was recently given the gift of an online course with Pema Chödrön, quite possibly the most famous female Buddhist monk in the world, and have been lately digging in to her teachings on love, compassion, joy and equanimity.
Ani Pema (as she is called) used to teach kindergarten before she was a monk and her instruction reflects that: she’s patient, caring and funny. I love the way she bravely owns her sh!# and humbly shares her shortcomings with all of us.
One of the more personally enlightening pieces in the course has been the focus on self-compassion. I’ve had a couple of pretty big revelations about it and would like to pass them on to you.
The first one is a quote I wrote and posted on social media the other day:
“It is easy to say, “Have self-compassion,” but it actually takes years of practice.”
Kind of self-explanatory.
The second revelation came when I was talking about the teachings with the same friend who’d gifted me the course. I was resisting the notion of “shifting attention from self to others” and feeling like I was being fed yet another organized religion’s doctrine about self-sacrifice being the path to heaven (or, in this case, freedom from suffering).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for thinking of others. In fact, I took the practice to such extremes that I acquired an illness a year ago as the direct result of over-giving and determined self-sacrifice. My resistance is well-founded.
But as I watched myself getting worked up with my friend, and heard my “out loud” struggle with the Buddhist concept, the fuller meaning quietly and gently dropped in.
It suddenly dawned on me that the teaching doesn’t start with compassion for others, it starts with self-compassion.
Maybe I’d gotten the order wrong?
“Have I been giving all this time without a foundation of self-compassion?” I asked my friend.
In a flash, as she nodded her opinion, it came to me that I undoubtedly had.
“The missing link!” I cried.
The missing link.
In order to “shift attention from self to others” I actually have to start with the self. My desire to serve, to respond with compassion to the suffering of others, has to begin with serving my needs and responding with compassion to myself.
Whaaaat? It sounds so SELFISH!
That’s the problem. I tend to think any focus on myself is self-centered. But without that compassion for who I am and where I’m at, I’m probably just running on empty. You might get filled up but I’m left depleted.
I don’t think I’m saying anything new here. It’s the old “put your own oxygen mask on first” analogy, but it feels new, like I’ve been working on a giant puzzle and I just found one of the pieces that got knocked under the carpet.
From the fires of love,
Celia
