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What the Dalai Lama Said

I heard this on a podcast and felt compelled to share it

kasey sparks
The Daily Cuppa
1 min readJan 19, 2025

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love yourself | photo by kasey sparks

In a podcast interview, author Elizabeth Gilbert shared a story about the first time the Dalai Lama visited the US. He met with a group of people who knew him only as some monk from Tibet.

The group asked him how to manage self-hatred.

The Dalai Lama didn’t understand the question. For 15 minutes he sat puzzled and asked the interpreter repeatedly to restate the question.

“Who’s the enemy?” he kept inquiring.

When he finally understood he asked if everyone at the table battled this.

All nodded.

“So the enemy lives inside you?”

A pained look covered his face and he said something like, “What a miserable way to live one’s life if the only person who’ll be with you for its entirety is also your enemy.”

His words are a reminder of how critical self-love is to one’s well-being, don’t cha think?

kasey sparks, © 2025

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The Daily Cuppa
The Daily Cuppa

Published in The Daily Cuppa

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kasey sparks
kasey sparks

Written by kasey sparks

making mistakes · gathering lessons · sparking curiosity · wrangling words & fiddling with titles since 2017

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