Don’t Wallow in Self Pity.

If you know me, you know that I’m all about my buddhist meditation practice and applying the 59 Buddhist Lojong slogans as a foundation for my practice as much as I can. We need to apply our mind training strategies whenever and however we can. But most of all we need to work on our own most personally trying afflictions. By analyzing our worst afflictions, then even the most difficult and baffling of situations won’t set us off balance as much. One of my worst mental afflictions is self-pity. This mental and spiritual affliction is addressed in Lojong Slogan No. 56.

Lojong Slogan No. 56. Don’t Wallow in Self-Pity

I was somewhat spoiled and overindulged as a child, which was nice for me but pretty bad for everyone around me. The end result as an adult is a rather exalted sense of entitlement, and also a childish tendency towards feeling aggrieved when I don’t get my way.  Obviously this is something I’ve always had to work on. So my greatest mental affliction is a tendency toward self-pity.

It’s a space I’m very familiar with. I tend to go into this mental room and wallow in a great deal of “why me” type of thinking, feeling sorry for myself, beating myself up, and in general making myself miserable.

I have my own reminder to myself, which is basically, “Don’t enter that room again.”  Every time I find myself entering that creepy room, which after a lifetime of immature self-pity by now is wallpapered with intricate cobwebs, skeletons and slithy toads from so much weeping and wailing that has gone on in there, I have set up a mental alarm system at the doorway of the pity room that flashes a neon sign to me in big red letters that reads:

“DO NOT ENTER – DANGER.”

So this is what personally works for me to stay out of the pity room.  After lots of years of meditation and mind-training and heart work, I totally recognize now when I’m going down the path of self-pity and I make a rapid u-turn. Wallowing in self-pity is the antithesis of our Buddhist training. It’s selfish, it’s petty, it’s ego-based, and it’s no good for anybody.

If we’re feeling down, that’s okay. Nowhere is it written that we can’t sit in bed for a night and stream Netflix and eat a pint of ice-cream to help heal a broken heart. We’re allowed to experience our emotions. This is what we’re experiencing right now. This isn’t heavy duty wallowing. We might label this “short-term wallowing.”

It may be a momentary lapse in discipline and self-control and there are certainly better ways to handle emotional pain. But a momentary lapse won’t kill us or our practice. But to continue wallowing, blame other people, blame our ex, blame society, let these toxic emotions continue on and on, refuse to deal with our own issues and the wrong thinking that brought us to this pitiful point, that’s wallowing in self-pity. This is a mortal danger to our growth, and a danger to our practice.

We must take a firm mental stand, vow to remember our Lojong, or other spiritual/ethical precepts, forgive ourselves, and quickly slam the door on the pity room. Don’t wallow in self-pity. Take a shower, comb your hair, then sit down and breathe.

We need to get back to ruling our own internal lives, and not be swayed by external circumstances. Don’t let external circumstances rule our lives. We’re the ruler of our own lives, the captain of own fate. The less we’re swayed by the external world and the more confident we become in our own internal decision and thought processes, the better we’ll be able to handle all of life little jabs. We’ll bend like the willow and dodge every arrow like a ninja.

We practice Tonglen. If things go badly we breathe in the negativity. Then we breathe out radiant positivity to the world. We don’t wallow. This is the buddhist way. 

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