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

[jkirk]

Did this get posted? I already see what might be a reply by Leifer, but my
post hasn't reached my mail yet.
Joanna
====================================


It's understandable why Tibetans (lamas in this discussion) didn't really
get it.
It is part of "our" culture, especially in the USA (and UK and Europe? )
Think of the painter van Gogh. He was suffused with it and could only escape
feeling it while painting, until even that didn't save him, from madness.
Many other examples could be brought but I think it should be pretty
obvious.  Self-loathing is a product of Judaeo-Christian upbringing that
tends to inculcate self-loathing as part of the guilt trip many such parents
and religious officials lay on their members. 

The Catholics are no better about this than the Prods. Sin is (or was?)
often taught as moral filth, with which one covers oneself when committing a
sin and not repenting. But repentance isn't that easy once the self-loathing
has been inculcated. Especially if the parents belong to one of the
Christian outfits that believe in original sin. Think of the label attached
to child's masturbation: "self-abuse." That's a great start for the
development of sexuality, is it not?  

Self-loathing is also taught to children by non-religious parents as an
artefact of a variety of parental neuroses, or worse. Such parenting lays
down a mental template of self-loathing that it may take adult years to
eliminate.

Makes one wonder if severe adult neurosis was simply absent in many of the
Tibetan families, before they became submerged in industrialized culture, as
the younger generation has done while living in India, after HHDL and many
others fled into exile.
Self-loathing might well accompany the development of a conventional self
that is based more on me (industrialized cultures) than on we
(non-industrtialized cultures). 

Joanna

====================================================================== 


Waldron  related an anecdote about the Dalai Lama once
>being asked a question  about self-loathing.


I recall Tai Situ Rinpoche being asked the same question. He also had a
difficult time understanding self  loathing. He said he had been asked the
question often, had thought  about it deeply, and come to the conclusion
that self loathing is disappointment with one's self, secondary to
unrealistic expectations.

Ron Leifer



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