Lesson 20: First Develop Love and Compassion for Yourself
In order to develop love and compassion for others we must first develop them for ourselves. But do we even know what love and compassion are? Gelek Rimpoche tells us that our mistaken idea of pleasure is nothing more than ignorance and confusion. It is our habit to ignore our body and our wellbeing until we develop some kind of pain. But often we cannot even distinguish between pain and pleasure in our lives. Dedicating for the benefit of all sentient beings is easy to say, difficult to comprehend. Developing ultimate love and compassion is a very slow and gradual process. All Tibetan prayers begin with “I and all sentient beings.” The first path given to us is to take care of our self spiritually. Then when we have developed that love and compassion for ourselves, we use that experience to develop it for others.
