I was fortunate to attend a Buddhist seminar last week where the rinpoche talked about “the value of self worth”.
How can we overcome the fear, hatred, violence and lack of acceptance in this world?
The upshot of it was that if we are able to truly realise that “we are worth it”, that we’re “special” in our own unique ways, then we wouldn’t feel threatened by others in any way. On a global scale, we could see the end of all the violence and chaos if we could start with “the self” and accept ourselves.
Once we accept ourselves and realise our worth, then it’s easy to accept others.
For example, so often, when someone pays us a compliment. Our initial reaction is normally suspicion. It may then be followed by acceptance and appreciation of the compliment. However, our instinctive reaction is because we don’t feel we are worthy.
Putting this into practice has to start from the self. Then the flow-on effect will reach others.
Once it reaches others, then world peace can be a reality.
He said it should be considered a grass roots or bottom up effort… not top-down.
In true Buddhist fashion, he finished by saying that if we didn’t understand what he meant… have a good night’s sleep, that always does the trick 🙂