Spiritual Joy: The Buddhist Dzogchen Path to Enlightenment by Springett Tara

Author:Springett, Tara [Springett, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2015-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Loving ourselves

Most of my students have reported that relentless and destructive self-criticism is one of their main obstacles to experiencing spiritual joy. I wasn’t very surprised by this because I see the same negative dynamic with my counselling clients, as well. Destructive self-criticism means saying things like this to yourself: ‘You are ugly, fat, stupid, a failure, a nuisance, it’s all your fault’. It is easy to see how destructive and useless these inner accusations are. However, many people have a hard time letting them go if they are not specifically guided to do so.

But self-criticism can also come along in more subtle ways that may affect even advanced spiritual seekers. It might sound like this, ‘I was not loving enough’, ‘I don’t let go quickly enough from negative emotions’ or even ‘I am not happy enough’. What distinguishes these thoughts from healthy and constructive self-criticism is that they lack self-compassion. Nobody is perfect and we all have to live with our many flaws and weaknesses and the decisive point is to see our imperfections with compassion and not with self-loathing.

It was one of the deepest insights of the Buddha that being too hard on yourself is detrimental to your spiritual progress. The Buddha went through six years of extreme asceticism and even starved himself almost to death before he understood that this was leading to no spiritual realisation whatsoever. When he had this insight he advocated the middle way, which is symbolized by a beautifully tuned string of a violin that is not too tight and not too loose. In the same way as a musician tunes his instrument with care and sensitivity we need to learn to relate to ourselves with love and gentle discipline. Any kind of harsh self-accusation will rarely do any good. Let me put it a bit more drastically:

Nobody has ever experienced spiritual realisation with their destructive self-criticism still in place.

Therefore, any form of harsh self-accusation or self-hatred is much too extreme. If someone does hurtful or damaging things to themselves or others, they need to repent them, try to make them good and then let them go. By contrast, neurotic thoughts about how stupid, ugly or inferior we are we should firmly reject by embracing ourselves with an imaginary loving hug and by chuckling about all this ‘nonsense’ that we are telling ourselves without taking it all too seriously.

Ultimately, the practice of spiritual joy will help us to erase any form of destructive attitude towards ourselves and others. The following exercise is a supporting practice that is designed to help you to establish a healthy feeling of self-love.

Being more loving with yourself

Think of a person you find easy to like and love. See them in front of your inner eye and wish them well with all your heart. See them penetrated and surrounded by beautiful healing light.

As your loving feeling increases, turn it on to yourself without thinking or changing the feeling. Wish yourself happiness, love and the fulfilment of your dreams with

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