Yesterday I got a request from a magazine to reprint something that I had written. The name of the magazine was Me Magazine. It was its first edition. I checked their website and saw that it is a magazine targeted at women aged 40 and older to let them know that everything is “all about me”. It was stated on their website — “It’s all about me” — that is their premise, and the message they are telling all these women. I could not restrain myself. When I wrote back, I gave them permission to use something very small, and I also added, “I’ve been spending years training my mind that it’s not all about me because thinking it is all about me just gives rise to suffering.” 

I think it is quite interesting that our society is promoting the idea “It is all about me” and that we, of course, believe it. We, as practitioners, are trying not to believe this, but a lot of people buy into this belief that “It is all about me”, and it is sad how much pain and misery that belief brings. It is like swimming upstream when you are practising the Dharma because we are training our minds against the mainstream belief that it is not all about me. It is all about sentient beings, all about the Bodhisattvas, but not about our egoistic minds. 

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!