The Golden Rule

The Golden Rule and variations on that theme have been in effect since ancient times, from Babylon and Egypt to Greece and China.  It’s written about in the Bible, the Torah, and is found in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism.

The Golden Rule and the Love thy Neighbor commandment instruct us to do unto others as we would have them to unto us. Or love the other as we love ourselves.

Often when we look at these tenets we see them as instructive in ways to treat the other. Being kind and generous to others is rewarded.  It’s even said in the yoga tradition that the path of service, or karma yoga, can lead to enlightenment. I don’t doubt that, but why is it that flight attendants have to remind us to put our own oxygen mask on in an emergency before we help others, could it be we forget to take care of ourselves in the name of service?

Let’s look at this rule or commandment more closely.  We often overlook the basis of the rule or commandment – which refers to how we’d like to be treated, or even how we treat ourselves.  Love thy neighbor as thyself.   Putting this practice into effect has to start with loving ourselves. How do you love yourself? Sometimes when people come to learn to meditate we take a look at how they treat themselves. Every one of us has thoughts in meditation or sometimes drift off in a daydream, but there are some students that are so hard on themselves when this happens – getting angry or frustrated with themselves – a habit they’ve fallen into as a way to make themselves do it right. Some people simply believe they can’t do it at all, or that there is something inherently wrong with them. Of course they can meditate, I remind them. I’ve never yet met someone who can’t.

I suggest that they practice being sweet to themselves, in and out of meditation. And by sweet, I don’t mean buying a new outfit or an ice cream, I mean actually being kind to yourself, and paying attention to yourself. Maybe you’ve forgotten your own inner loveliness. You are wise, you are kind, you are aware, and you know what is good for you on a very basic level. Being unkind to ourselves can simply be an old habit. It might come up that someone stays in a relationship that isn’t nourishing, or they say nasty things to themselves when they look in the mirror, or don’t take good care of their body, or don’t listen to their own inner wisdom. What if we treated our neighbor based on the ways that we sometimes treat (or loved) ourselves? We’d ignore them, say nasty things about them, or not care about them in some way. You see how that goes?

How we treat ourselves can inform everything we say or do. We have to become aware of it first, we each have to expand our awareness. I’ve written about really listening to yourself, discovering your intuition, asking yourself what you really want, living in tune with nature, beginning your meditation practice, and remembering to be grateful. But it all comes down to loving one’s self – which is often more difficult than it sounds. It takes practice.

There is a Buddhist meditation practice known as Loving Kindness (You don’t have to be Buddhist to do it.) It has the immediate benefit of sweetening and changing old habituated negative patterns of mind. In this simple practice, one begins with truly experiencing love for themselves, and from there, one meditates on kindness to others.

It goes like this:

Here are some intentions I use, choose one that resonates with you, or come up with your own:

The more I practice Loving Kindness, the more I learn to know myself as a person capable of warmth, of sweetness, of love and a peaceful response to life. I trust myself more and have more to give. Each act of kindness to others then becomes an act of gentleness to myself and to my own spirit.