June 05, 2026

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

This teaching is attributed to the Buddha during his years of wandering and instruction across northern India, a period when he encountered enormous human suffering up close — poverty, illness, grief, social rejection. The teaching pushed back against the deeply ingrained human tendency to rank oneself as less worthy of care than others. It speaks directly to love and compassion today because most people find it genuinely easier to be kind to a struggling friend than to themselves in the same situation.