[Buddha-l] Re: The Dalai Lama on Self-Loathing

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Katherine,

>Thanks for the selected quotations, Joy.  It’s 
>interesting that the Dailai Lama’s book, *Healing 
>Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist 
>Perspective* (Snow Lion, 1997) is based on Shantideva. 
> I haven’t gotten to it yet, but now I’m really 
>curious to see what his interpretation is! 

Of course there is a difference of context and the absence or presence of transcendentality (a bigger perspective than the self and more if wished), so it's open to interpretation, but if you look at the bare facts or rather the terms of the self-loathing, they seem to be similar. Shantideva (and the Dalai-Lama) believes there is better than the self, whereas for many modern Westerners the self or an extension of the self is all the perspective they have. I am surprised (although I heard the anecdote before) the Dalai-Lama expresses surprise over self-loathing rather than over the absence of anything transcending the self. 

Joy