Kindness in the Light of Karma (extract)

"In most people’s eyes, the idea of being kind to yourself means indulging yourself, like the wisdom, quote unquote, on wrappers of Dove chocolate: “Go ahead, be kind to yourself. Have another chocolate.” From there, the idea of being kind to others becomes basically indulging them, doing things they like. But if you think in terms of karma, kindness is something else. Being kind to yourself means looking at your thoughts, looking at your actions, and figuring out where they’re still lacking in skill, so that you can do something about it.

A lot of us don’t like to do this. We feel we’re coming down hard on ourselves if we look at our shortcomings. But this is why the Buddha prefaced his instructions to Rahula on how to meditate with the teaching on making your mind like earth. People spit on earth, but earth doesn’t react. Make your mind like water. Water is used to wash away dirty things, but the water doesn’t react, doesn’t shrink away. Make the mind like wind. Wind blows dirty things around, and yet it’s not disgusted by them. Make the mind like fire. Fire burns disgusting things, but it’s not disgusted by them. Make your mind like space. No one can write on it. In other words, the words of other people or the actions of other people don’t have to stay inscribed in your mind. Even as you’re sitting here right now, the pain you had in the body just a second ago, that doesn’t have to be held onto. Think of it as something written in space.

When you can make the mind like this, that’s when you’re ready to look at what else is going on in the mind, so that you can look at things in terms of cause and effect, and figure out which thoughts you should side with and which thoughts you should try to get out of. That’s why the Buddha talks to Rahula in another sutta about being ashamed of thoughts that you realize give rise to harm to yourself or to others. “Shame” here is not the opposite of pride. It’s the opposite of shamelessness. There should be an underlying sense that you are competent, but you should also look at your mind from the point of view of karma: Things come into the mind from the past, and they’re going to be skillful and unskillful because you’ve done skillful and unskillful things in the past. Everybody has. But the question is, do you want to keep on doing the unskillful ones? What can you do to foster the more skillful ones? When you think in these terms, that’s when you’re really being kind to yourself. You’re creating a brighter present for yourself and a brighter future."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Kindness in the Light of Karma"