October 16, 2026

Kindness Begins Within

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.

Pema Chödrön, an American-born Tibetan Buddhist nun and the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey, wrote this during a period when she was guiding Western students through grief, divorce, illness, and the raw edges of their own minds. The line reminds us that lovingkindness is not a performance aimed outward first; it is a capacity that has to be grown at home, in the heart, before it can reach anyone else. In the Buddhist metta tradition, practitioners are taught to recite wishes for well-being in a specific order: first for oneself, then a loved one, then a neutral person, then someone difficult, then all beings everywhere. This sequence is not selfish; it acknowledges that a well of compassion run dry cannot nourish anyone. Chödrön's teaching, drawn from the Tibetan lojong and Shambhala lineages she studied under Chögyam Trungpa, insists that harshness toward ourselves quietly becomes harshness toward others, so the practice must begin close to home.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Compassion and Lovingkindness →