a story recently shared by a friend

Okay, why have I posted a picture of myself studying in my meditation corner?  I recently read a quote from the Buddha, "The moment you see how important it is to love yourself, you will stop making others suffer."  It has been like a koan, stripping away my terra firma and leaving me uncertain.  In our humanness we determine what is good and just and right within us and we lean toward it, grasping, hoping to convey our worthiness in some measure to the world.  All the while we kick, bind, hush and hide the qualities deemed unworthy, leaning as far from them as we can.  When someone mentions them in conversation, we bristle and rail, "Who are you calling controling?".  Our emotional reaction loudly proclaims our resistence.  Are we the grasping or resisting?  Is there a vantage point devoid of charge?  Does it matter if we are patient or impatient? good or bad? neither or both?  What does it mean to love ourselves.  I have often bent toward my "spiritual" self, my generosity, my open heart, my sensitivity, my intelligence and creativity.  I have wanted to sculpt my projected image to best ensure a positive reception and a judgement of "Ah yes, you ARE worthy, capable and deserving".  It is a subtle violence toward self and other.  What if instead I told you that I can be controlling, material, manipulative, unkind and ungenerous?  Would that be more true.  Hardly.  That would exchange violence for violence.  Perhaps we love ourselves best when the weight falls squarely in the middle, when we hold the pendulum in midswing as it is right now, not tomorrow or next week or when we become holier than holy.  Perhaps the life arising and expressing now IS enough.  Regardless, I have a sneaking suspicion that it is all there is.
Perhaps.