Doesn’t the very idea of self-acceptance affirm a mistaken notion of self? As the Buddha taught, our habitual perception of self is a mental construct—the idea of an entity who causes things to happen, who is victimized, who controls the show. When we say, “I accept myself as I am,” we are not accepting a story about a good or bad self. Rather, we are accepting the immediate mental and sensory experiences we interpret as self. We are seeing the familiar wants and fears, the judging and planning thoughts as a part of the flow of life. Accepting them in this way actually enables us to recognize
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