How to love myself?

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No_Mind
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How to love myself?

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How can I love myself? How to value myself more?

If you answer please give slightly expanded answer. Just a one line "metta for yourself" is not enough. How does one forgive by doing metta for oneself. How do you do metta for yourself? It is not possible to love oneself.

I do not hate anyone, any set of people, any religion. I regularly do metta for everyone else (in spite of appearing angry all the time!!) But when it comes to myself I am annoyed with myself all the time.

:namaste:
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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cappuccino
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by cappuccino »

All you think of yourself doesn't apply,
good or bad.
Last edited by cappuccino on Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
binocular
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by binocular »

No_Mind wrote:How can I love myself? How to value myself more?
Have you tried googling this query?
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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No_Mind
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Re: How to love myself?

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binocular wrote:
No_Mind wrote:How can I love myself? How to value myself more?
Have you tried googling this query?
I meant metta for self not generic forgive yourself articles.

:namaste:
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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cappuccino
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by cappuccino »

You don't need to love yourself,
lose yourself.
binocular
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by binocular »

No_Mind wrote:I meant metta for self not generic forgive yourself articles.
I think reading those "generic articles" could give you some ideas about "loving yourself" and "valuing yourself", and those ideas can then help as a good basis to further think about this phenomenon called "loving yourself" and "valuing yourself".
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by JohnK »

No_Mind wrote: If you answer please give slightly expanded answer. Just a one line "metta for yourself" is not enough. How does one forgive by doing metta for oneself.
I have had positive experience on retreat with a guided forgiveness practice/meditation that then I could use unguided. It had three parts: forgiveness to others, forgiveness from others, and forgiveness of "self." It had phrases in the way that metta practice can. Of course, being on retreat, I was more open to its potential power.
If you google something like forgiveness practice meditation Buddhism, some will turn up that you might try to see how they work.
Those who grasp at perceptions & views wander the internet creating friction. [based on Sn4:9,v.847]
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Sam Vara
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Re: How to love myself?

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At the place between self and other, the practice of the brahmavihāra is invaluable. It entails moving empathy through the entirety of our perceptions, and inner reality, starting perhaps with just the sense of what’s touching us right now. To put it simply: ‘In the presence of this (sensation, mood, irritation etc.), may I be well.’ ‘May I not be carrying blame and criticism towards myself.’ ‘May I acknowledge my goodness and rejoice in it: my virtues, the precepts I keep, the bad that I’ve given up, the commitments I’ve made. May I acknowledge and appreciate those.’ ‘May I be able to bear with the foolish things I’ve done – as past actions, rather than as my self.’ So once we have established the intention towards empathy and good will, we focus on that intention with its steady feel and energy, and work towards placing that benevolent intent alongside any afflictive attitudes, moods, or energies. We ask awareness to stand beside us in our grief or anger or despond – and not try to fix anything. To just be a present witness, with a clear unfussy empathy – and allow a process to unfold.

When I practise in this way, I often imagine or visualise sitting within a pool of light, something that is gently pleasant and doesn’t need anything from me. Then I bring that image, that mood into the mind and spread it into the body. In walking meditation, I might walk along as if I were wading a step at a time through that warm light so that the body feels relaxed. Or I might imagine sitting with the Buddha as a friend – to be right there in the presence of someone who’s saying, ‘However you are now, I accept it.’ Other approaches might work for you; I’m just suggesting ways of evoking a mood. However you do it, it’s important to find your own space where you don’t have to be that good, or happy or vigorous or punctual or neat.
Ajahn Sucitto. The whole article is here: http://ajahnsucitto.org/articles/cultivating-empathy/

There is also this: http://sucitto.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/p ... metta.html
Both articles emphasise the importance of pleasant bodily relaxation as a support for goodwill to oneself. I have got a lot of benefit from them over the years, and I hope you do too.
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No_Mind
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Re: How to love myself?

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Sam Vara wrote:...
Thank you Sam. It is easy for me to wish others well but very difficult to wish myself well. In fact I cannot recall a single instance in my life when I have wished myself well (and meant it).

It was helpful to read Ajahn Sucitto's words. Practical instructions on doing metta towards oneself is quite difficult to find on the net. There are canned phrases galore like "May I be happy, .. well, .. safe, .. peaceful" but some people like me have great difficulty in thinking/wishing, may I be happy.

I do not know why .. but from very young age I have always thought I was a bad person in my past life and that I need to suffer. I do not take care of myself and have become overweight. Yesterday I was thinking what if a heart attack were to happen to me .. then I thought I deserve it .. and that set off alarm bells ringing in my brain .. no one who has not done harm to any other person should think in this self destructive way.

Maybe doing some metta for myself will help change my outlook towards me.

:namaste:
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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cappuccino
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by cappuccino »

Well don't you realize the self is fictional, and your concerns are fictional.
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No_Mind
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Re: How to love myself?

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cappuccino wrote:Well don't you realize the self is fictional, and your concerns are fictional.
No, I am bit slow on the uptake.

:namaste:
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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BasementBuddhist
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by BasementBuddhist »

cappuccino wrote:Well don't you realize the self is fictional, and your concerns are fictional.

That is very true. But when one is in the grip of selfhood and the 'self' is causing a lot of Dukkha, for many just going, "I have no self, I refuse to feel bad" is not enough. You can tell your "Self" that it doesn't exist all you want but when it is sitting there, strangling you, that isn't helpful.
No_Mind wrote:
Sam Vara wrote:...
Thank you Sam. It is easy for me to wish others well but very difficult to wish myself well. In fact I cannot recall a single instance in my life when I have wished myself well (and meant it).

It was helpful to read Ajahn Sucitto's words. Practical instructions on doing metta towards oneself is quite difficult to find on the net. There are canned phrases galore like "May I be happy, .. well, .. safe, .. peaceful" but some people like me have great difficulty in thinking/wishing, may I be happy.

I do not know why .. but from very young age I have always thought I was a bad person in my past life and that I need to suffer. I do not take care of myself and have become overweight. Yesterday I was thinking what if a heart attack were to happen to me .. then I thought I deserve it .. and that set off alarm bells ringing in my brain .. no one who has not done harm to any other person should think in this self destructive way.

Maybe doing some metta for myself will help change my outlook towards me.

:namaste:
I don't know if this will help you or not, but Thich Nhat hanh says that we all create our feelings about overselves and others. In this way, it is very much like how people create children. The point is not to push our children (feelings) away and trample them, but to hold them gently, and rock them. When I am feeling bad, I simply Picture my negative emotion as a very cute and hurt child, and then visualize myself comforting that child. The feeling usually goes away.

Also, doing metta meditation every day helps. I sit and focus on five or six people. I imagine them sitting with me and we just sit together for a bit. After a while, when I have them firmly fixed in my mind, I imagine them projecting love towards me, and see myself enveloped in that love. After a few months, it started to help me.

I've always had a hard time feeling anything but Dukkah, but these things, as well as a heavy focus on dependent origination and the five aggregates, have really helped me get in a position to put the Dukkah to the side and start tearing down this concept of self that I've built in my mind.
Last edited by BasementBuddhist on Fri Apr 21, 2017 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Lucas Oliveira
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by Lucas Oliveira »

No_Mind wrote:
Sam Vara wrote:...
Thank you Sam. It is easy for me to wish others well but very difficult to wish myself well. In fact I cannot recall a single instance in my life when I have wished myself well (and meant it).

It was helpful to read Ajahn Sucitto's words. Practical instructions on doing metta towards oneself is quite difficult to find on the net. There are canned phrases galore like "May I be happy, .. well, .. safe, .. peaceful" but some people like me have great difficulty in thinking/wishing, may I be happy.

I do not know why .. but from very young age I have always thought I was a bad person in my past life and that I need to suffer. I do not take care of myself and have become overweight. Yesterday I was thinking what if a heart attack were to happen to me .. then I thought I deserve it .. and that set off alarm bells ringing in my brain .. no one who has not done harm to any other person should think in this self destructive way.

Maybe doing some metta for myself will help change my outlook towards me.

:namaste:
For the heart see a cardiologist.
For negative thoughts a psychiatrist and a psychologist
For overweight a nutritionist and physical education teacher

If a person in "normal state" and influenced by illusions, imagine a person who is sad, discouraged.

DEPRESSION IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DISABILITY AROUND THE WORLD
http://www.newsweek.com/depression-arou ... ity-577591

http://www.firstpost.com/india/world-he ... 73296.html

http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/depres ... le/651437/


Everyone has done so much evil in their past lives.

All people are suffering.

:namaste:
I participate in this forum using Google Translator. http://translate.google.com.br

http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/
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cappuccino
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Re: How to love myself?

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The self is miserable by nature, the only happiness is knowing this & letting go of self altogether.
Last edited by cappuccino on Fri Apr 21, 2017 2:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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No_Mind
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Re: How to love myself?

Post by No_Mind »

BasementBuddhist wrote:
cappuccino wrote:Well don't you realize the self is fictional, and your concerns are fictional.
That is very true.
No it is not. The notion of an eternal self is false. The self created by five aggregates is very much real and existing.

What cappucino wrote is right out of Hinduism (concept of the world and everything in it being an illusion Maya) and not Buddhism. This is a Buddhist forum and we are discussing Buddha Dharma not Hindu Dharma.

I don't know if this will help you or not, but Thich Nhat hanh says that we all create our feelings about overselves and others. In this way, it is very much like how people create children. The point is not to push our children (feelings) away and trample them, but to hold them gently, and rock them. When I am feeling bad, I simply Picture my negative emotion as a very cute and hurt child, and then visualize myself comforting that child. The feeling usually goes away.

Also, doing metta meditation every day helps. I sit and focus on five or six people. I imagine them sitting with me and we just sit together for a bit. After a while, when I have them firmly fixed in my mind, I imagine them projecting love towards me, and see myself enveloped in that love. After a few months, it started to help me.

I've always had a hard time feeling anything but Dukkah, but these things, as well as a heavy focus on dependent origination and the five aggregates, have really helped me get in a position to put the Dukkah to the side and start tearing down this concept of self that I've built in my mind.
Thank you for your suggestion. Every little bit helps.
Lucas Oliveira wrote:

If a person in "normal state" and influenced by illusions, imagine a person who is sad, discouraged.

:namaste:
Very correct Lucas.

:namaste:
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”― Albert Camus
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