Introducing Buddha: A Graphic Guide (Graphic Guides)

by Borin Van Loon

The gateway to practising the Mahayana path is known as Maitri or kindness to oneself. When we look around, we see the whole world struggling with that vulnerability and tenderness, trying to build solid protection against being touched. The development of maitri comes about when we start to accept negativity as part of the path. We have to make friends with ourselves and be kind to those aspects of ourselves we like least. Learning to be kind to ourselves brings the discovery that fundamentally we are quite soft. We become hard when we habitually deny our own woundedness and blame others for causing our pain. In admitting our own hurt, we become soft and vulnerable. The Mahayana teachings proclaim that all beings possess tenderness, as well as an intrinsic wakefulness which is called Buddha nature. The discovery of Buddha nature leads to the development of compassion. Compassion is the natural expression of self-existing goodness.