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motivations, but is also the most healing and elevating.”

•           •           •

elf-compassion is closely connected to self-acceptance, which we
discussed in an earlier chapter, but it is even more than the
acceptance of ourselves. It is actually having compassion for our human
frailties and recognizing that we are vulnerable and limited like all
people. As a result, it is a fundamental basis for developing compassion
for others. It’s hard to love others as you love yourself, as both men
pointed out, if you don’t love yourself.
The Dalai Lama had mentioned during the week how he was shocked
to hear from Western psychologists about how many of their patients
wrestled with issues of self-hatred. Self-preservation, self-love, and self-
care, he had assumed, are fundamental to our nature. This assumption is
fundamental to Buddhist practice, so it was shocking to hear that people
had to learn to express compassion not only to others but also to
themselves.
Modern culture makes it hard for us to have compassion for ourselves.
We spend so much of our lives climbing a pyramid of achievement where
we are constantly being evaluated and judged, and often found to be not
making the grade. We internalize these other voices of parents, teachers,
and society at large. As a result, sometimes people are not very
compassionate with themselves. People don’t rest when they are tired,
and neglect their basic needs for sleep, food, and exercise as they drive
themselves harder and harder. As the Dalai Lama said, they treat
themselves as if they are part of the machine. People tend to feel anxious
and depressed because they expect themselves to have more, be more,
achieve more. Even when people are successful and grab all the brass
rings, they often feel like failures or frauds, just waiting to fall off the
merry-go-round. Jinpa explains, “Lack of self-compassion manifests in a
harsh and judgmental relationship with ourselves. Many people believe
that unless they are critical and demanding, they will be failures,
unworthy of recognition and undeserving of love.”