We know that every ordinary person loves himself more than others. However, the Bodhisattvas and God’s messengers who come to the world have boundless loving-kindness. They love others more than themselves.
We should learn from them and cultivate boundless loving-kindness. To cultivate boundless loving-kindness, we must first love ourselves. This is not self-love. Self-love makes one selfish, causing one to ignore others’ feelings and benefits, and even ignore others’ lives, harming others in order to benefit oneself. Loving ourselves is a kind of wisdom. Accepting ourselves is a state of mind. If we are harsh with ourselves, we tend to be harsh with others too. If we love ourselves, we will love others too. To forgive others, we must first forgive ourselves. To understand others, we must first understand ourselves. We must be full of loving-kindness to ourselves, accept ourselves the way we are, live in harmony with our shortcomings, embrace our weaknesses, and be kind to ourselves in the here and now. Stay rational, and don’t feel remorse, inferior, pessimistic, or hopeless about our flaws, weaknesses, and mistakes. We repent with shame. We are willing to forgive ourselves and correct ourselves. But we are not anxious. If you have these overeager thoughts, please let them go. Because whether remorse, low self-esteem, pessimism, or anxiety—these are all distorted mental states that arise from self-love, variations of the same root. Watch our mind, and be free from greed, hatred, disgust, envy, fear, and worry. Relax our body and mind. Fill our mind with loving-kindness. Fill every cell, every drop of blood, and every element of our body and mind with loving-kindness. Let the peace and tranquility of loving-kindness pervade our lives. As the power of loving-kindness penetrates deep into our hearts and builds abundant kindness, we become joyful with boundless loving-kindness. When abundant joy and boundless loving-kindness naturally emanate from within you, relax your body and mind in the warmth and brightness. Emanate this loving-kindness to your loved ones, to those you are not familiar with or don’t know, to your enemies, and to all living beings. **Let’s pray:** May all sentient beings be kind. May they have peace and joy. May they have friends who are gentle, caring, and righteous. May all sentient beings reconcile with their enemies, be free from affliction and anxiety, fear and sorrow. May all sentient beings be free from disease and hunger, wars and disasters, suffering and hardship.