Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim: Exchanging Self with Others

Challenging the ego-centric perspective, promoting a shift towards universal compassion and the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Anatta
8 min readMar 21, 2024

Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim is the path to enlightenment. It’s a step-by-step emotional journey from ruthless self-centeredness, the natural human condition, to a compassionate focus on the needs and wants of others.

It’s not a quick and easy transformation, but if one travels the path, over and over again, eventually, even the hardest heart will transform.

The first step on the journey is to understand that in order to feel compassion for all living beings, one must learn to treat others equally.

Tibetan Buddhist Lamrim: Developing Equanimity

The second step is to recognize the feelings of affectionate love you want to cultivate for all living beings. The traditional Buddhist approach is to start with mother love, a nearly universal experience, even if not recognized as such. If the mother relationship is strained, others can be substituted, but it would be wise to heal the mother relationship as well.

Tibetan Buddhist

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Anatta

Buddhist practitioner and writer. My autistic son is the focus of my spiritual practice. He inspires me with his love and companionship.