So for this week, the theme will be oneself. So the focus is on or relationships who oneself. And so the surprise that this came up is a theme for this time of the year, I had thought perhaps this was a better time for something like loving kindness or compassion or generosity. So we get into the holiday season. But then I thought that no, I think that a focus on oneself to kind of come into a better space, a better way of being with oneself, can prepare ourselves to be in the social world, those of us who are going to be more social, perhaps or more interactive during the holiday season. So oneself it's a little bit of surprising theme for Buddhist sometimes because of sometimes in excessive emphasis on not-self. And it seems like we shouldn't, that shouldn't talk about self at all. But if you find and then looking at teachings of the Buddha, he often talked about the we used the word self and then with the Pali word is ATI, a TTA. And positive sense, I believe, without any fear, or concern, that it'd be misunderstood as being a metaphysical sell self, or being some kind of permanent self or permanent existential self, that somehow the ordinary idea of oneself is a valuable and useful reference point for understanding ourselves and our lives. And the and I think that to some degree, there is this wonderful interactiveness and, and balance and ancient teachings of the Buddha, Buddha, a certain kind of individualism, and a certain kind of collectivism, certain kind of emphasis on personal agency, and what we can do, and an emphasis on being open, receptive, connected with others in the world around us. And the combination of those is a fascinating way of living this life. And I'll say more about that in a couple of minutes. But I wanted to read a passage from the Dhammapada. Where this word self is, is ATA is used. And here it's being translated as a oneself. If one knew the oneself to be precious, one would guard oneself with care, the sage sages watch over themselves in any part of the night. So I think that sages often stay up and meditate through the night. So they're caring for each other, caring for themselves. This idea of when knew oneself to be precious, one would guard oneself with care, and also goes on and says, oneself indeed, is one's own protector, what are their protector could there be with, with self control when gains protector hard to obtain? So to having the agency of being one's own protector, and what other protector could there be, many of us are hoping others will protect us, others will make us safe. If only these other people would behave in a certain way, then we will be safe. And it's it's common these days to for plenty of people to say that they're not safe, and then insist that others change how they are to make them safe. And there's some value to that. And we're not going to discredit the importance of doing that at times. But there's also something very important about learning how to be one's own protector, and learning how to find safety within. And here it's said it's obtained through self control, when gains are protector hard to obtain. And
so one of the one of the ways I would like to present this idea that each of us for ourselves is precious, each of us for ourselves as deer is through the notion of self respect, respecting ourselves. And respect has this wonderful combination of having agency we're doing something and also a kind of openness a kind of making space For a kind of letting go of conceit and self concern for something to that which we respect to give some kind of care to it or deference to it. Generally, we think that it's easier to understand with other people or some other parts of reality, if we have respect for it. So to respect someone, is a powerful act that we generate from inside of us when it's done wisely. And then to, at the same time, as this taking agency for this respect, having this respect for someone, there's also a kind of putting oneself a little bit aside, hopefully, in a healthy way, a little bit of a difference here, they're making space for the other person that we respect, is kind of like hospitality, is one of these things where these dual related dual activities is there, that on one hand, we are the agent of or offering hospitality to someone. And in offering hospitality, we there is a kind of self forgetting, it's kind of putting oneself aside for the purpose of supporting helping hosting someone else. I think generosity also has this dual action of, of agency that we do, but also a giving away. And perhaps compassion is the same way that we can generate compassion care for others, and at the same time, it's like is caring for others, and certain kind of healthy way we're putting ourselves aside our preferences and things. So respect is that way and, and not dual kind of relationship can be towards ourselves, we can have agency, in deciding or having respect for ourselves, giving ourselves respect, at the same time is doing that. Letting go of conceit, letting go of certain kind of preferences for what we do and what we should do. So that we can really know ourselves better feel ourselves better be present for us, in a bigger way. And so this idea of we are important enough, we're valuable enough that we are appropriate object of our own respect. And, and just like everyone we can respect, there's certain kind of way of valuing and seeing the worth of every human being, and not to leave ourselves out of that. To have respect for ourselves, to have care for ourselves. The movement of love in Buddhism is not a movement, where everyone is loved but oneself. But it's a movement of love that includes ourselves. So I think of sometimes as the as the heart, the emotional hearts being kind of like a light bulb, and then you turn it on the light for you know, maybe a room that gets filled quickly with light, but the the if it when the first light shines on ourselves, and, and then it light shines on what's around us, that the love the care, the respect, first goes through us, and then into the world around us. And it's my hope that if we have self respect, we actually have more substance in ourselves, for respecting others, that that we show up more fully when we have self respect. And the more fully we show up, the more we're there, to care, love, be friendly, supportive, kind to other people. That self respect that we're where we are, we're allowed to live we're allowed to be, we don't have to be apologetic for ourselves, defend ourselves. We don't have to be self effacing. We don't have to kind of, not count, we're allowed to account so that we can let everyone else count better. We're allowed to be worthy in full, so that we can offer that gift of attention and presence and space for other people as well.
So this idea of, of refuge. oneself is the refuge of oneself, what are the refuge can there be? So again, the idea of protector were there our own protector or own refuge? And so how do we make ourselves a refuge for ourselves? How do we make protect ourselves? And how do we so I would like to say that it takes some eight See, it's not kind of just trusting that we're innately good or that everything is is wonderful about ourselves, which some people are so eager to feel because there's maybe such a low negative self image, that's a bomb, it's kind of medicine to hear that you're worthy and wonderful. But the way to give substance to it is through agency. And the Buddha gave a number of things. One was through living ethically, that the more we can live ethically, the more self respect that can be. So we kind of create the conditions to have self respect. And in that regard, one way to develop self respect is not that we are automatically ethical. But rather, we're we have a commitment, some people would say, a vow, to live as ethically as we can, and to learn from our ethical mistakes, to try to do better in the future. That kind of attitude, I think, is warrants more self respect. And so the idea of making a commitment making a vow is, is a very, I think, powerful thing to do. The other thing that can afford making a House of Refuge or self respect, is to develop mindfulness, to have the self awareness, enough self awareness to see how we undermine ourselves, how we criticize ourselves, how we doubt ourselves. And then, and then not not believe it so much, be able to see it clearly enough and fully enough, that we begin trusting the seeing the knowing that perception out there it is again, that habit of mind to be self negating. But I see it. And the word respect, as you know, many of you know, comes from the word to see again, the Latin word, re suspect. And so to this idea of mindfulness, really being able to see and see with care, see with kindness, ie with a certain kind of openness. So that there's this, we're not caught in the negative self talk, and begin having respect that we can do this we can meet our negative negativity, with kindness, with care, with openness, that's respect worthy. And so to too and then the last one, I think, the last one I want to read here is fascinating poem by the Buddha verse, a person should not give oneself away, should not give oneself up. Beautiful speech should be released, malevolent speech should not. So this, so this idea of one should not give oneself away. To have self respect, we never give ourselves away, that we might do that dual action, where there's self respect, and we get out of the way, too, so we get rid of it. We like over conceit, we kind of respect powerfully with agency, put aside our own preferences, sometimes for the benefit of others. But we're not giving ourselves away. We're not giving up on anything and not giving up on ourselves. So that's sort of the theme for this week is oneself. And the topic for today is respect to self respect. And
I suspect that not many of you have thought about this in relationship to yourself, some of you probably have, and maybe for today, you can reflect on this idea of self respect. What does it mean for you, maybe talk to friends and family, about, you know, what it might mean and how this idea of self respect can be beneficial for you and, and then maybe significant, maybe even powerful for you to live with greater risk self respect to, to find how to have self respect, to tap into self respect to reflect on this topic and look at it and live with it for the day. And then tomorrow, we'll go on, on other aspects of focusing on oneself. Thank you.
