Loving care, joy in the heart

This book teaches us to say yes to life and to make friends with ourselves, with the world, and with all it has to offer us in joy and suffering. When one begins to meditate or to engage in a spiritual discipline, one often hopes in some way to become a better person. But this is basically just a kind of subtle violence against what one really is, against one's own being. Loving attention to oneself - what is called Maitri in Buddhism - does not mean that we have to eradicate any qualities of ourselves. Maitri means that we are allowed to be as mad, as angry, as fearful, and as jealous as we are and have always been. The basis of our practice is ourselves, whoever we are in this moment.