"Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have." -Doris Mortman
Making peace with who you are means knowing who you are. It means respecting yourself and respecting others...being kind, loving, and ethical...in other words, being moral. In Buddhist teaching, morality does not mean a forced or puritanical abiding by rules.
In my own definition, morality means living with intentions that reflect love and compassion for ourselves as well as caring for others. As the philosopher George Santayana said, "Morality is the desire to lessen suffering in the world." Living in a way that doesn't perpetuate hurting ourselves or hurting another is considered to be an expression both of great power and great compassion.
The Buddha said that if we truly loved ourselves we would never harm another, because if we harm another it is in some way diminishing who we are. There is no way to lash out at someone physically or verbally, to belittle their achievements, to exploit them in some way, to consider them unworthy of hearing the truth, and emerge undamaged ourselves. We are capable of so much more, and we dishonor that potential when we don't live with integrity.
How about trying a Buddhist practice of morality? It does involve loving ourselves and others...but isn't peace worth it?
Rev. Donna
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