Practicing the Dhamma is primarily an issue of looking at yourself, looking at your own thoughts, your own words, your own deeds, seeing what’s skillful, seeing what’s not. It’s not so much an issue of self-improvement as one of action-improvement, word-improvement, and thought-improvement. This is an important distinction, because people in the modern world — especially in the modern world — seem to be obsessed with self-image. We’ve spent our lives bombarded with images, and you can’t help but compare your image of yourself to the images of people you see outside you. And for the most part there’s no comparison: You’re not as strong, as beautiful, as wealthy, as stylish, and so forth…So when we say that you’re looking at yourself, remember you’re not looking at your “self.” You’re looking at your thoughts, words, and deeds. Try to look at them as objectively as possible, get the whole issue of “self” out of the way, and then it becomes a lot easier to make improvements. - Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 13:03:45 +0000
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