Eve Decker: Wise Self-Soothing is Crucial

(Insight Meditation Community of Berkeley) The Buddha's teachings point to the need for clear understanding of our own minds and hearts, along with intention, compassion, and practice. As the adage goes, we must become the ones we seek while we work to change (or even consistently comfort) the world. To do that, we need to know what's going on for us internally and know how to wisely self-soothe when we are experiencing distress. The Buddha taught this, and this teaching is pretty precisely echoed in neuroscience and current psychology, including (but not limited to) Compassion Focused Therapy; Polyvagal Theory; and Internal Family Systems. The Buddha observed reality and neuroscientists are doing the same.