Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Maitri
To meet your own experience — especially the unwanted, embarrassing, or painful parts — with kindness and acceptance instead of aggression, building an unbiased, friendly relationship with yourself.
Maitri (unconditional friendliness to yourself): The moment you catch yourself self-attacking, drop the good/bad labels and make one small gesture of kindness, honesty, or gentleness toward yourself. Stay with whatever you’re feeling — especially the unwanted parts — warmly, just as you are. In formal practice, send loving-kindness to yourself first, then outward. Friendliness with honesty, extended unconditionally.
What it is
Maitri (Sanskrit; Pali metta) means loving-kindness — but Pema Chödrön’s signature emphasis is maitri toward oneself: “unconditional friendliness,” a “simple, direct relationship with the way we are.” It is the practice of meeting your own experience — including the parts you’d rather hide: fear, anger, neediness, failure, the whole “catalogue of the unwanted” — without labeling it good or bad and without trying to fix or attack it. Pema frames this not as self-improvement but as making friends with yourself exactly as you are, which she insists is the indispensable ground for genuine compassion toward others: “Unconditional good heart toward others is not even a possibility unless we attend to our own demons.” It belongs in embodiment state because it is less a technique you do and more a felt stance you embody — a warmth and gentleness held toward your own being moment to moment.
The Method
Maitri in Pema’s teaching has both an on-the-spot attitude and a formal practice: On the spot (the everyday practice):
- Notice the moment of self-judgment. Catch yourself the instant you start attacking, criticizing, or rejecting your own experience (“I shouldn’t feel this,” “what’s wrong with me”).
- Drop the labels. Stop sorting the experience into “good me / bad me.” Pema: settle down with yourself “just as we are, without labeling our experience as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’”
- Offer a gesture of kindness. Make one small move of gentleness, honesty, or clear seeing toward yourself — Pema says any such gesture changes how you experience the world.
- Stay with what’s here, warmly. Allow the unwanted feeling to be present with friendliness and curiosity rather than aggression. This is maitri and “learning to stay” working together. Formal practice: Pema teaches loving-kindness (maitri) meditation in the classic seven-stage expansion, but with the crucial instruction to begin with oneself — generating kindness for yourself first, then a loved one, a friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, all four, and finally all beings. The traditional phrases (“May I be happy, may I be free from suffering.”) are offered first to yourself. (Faithfully summarized from The Places That Scare You and Pema Chödrön’s teaching, not reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
Pema Chödrön (b. 1936), American Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Shambhala lineage and student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, made maitri-toward-oneself a cornerstone of her work — her teacher’s phrase “making friends with yourself“ runs throughout.
The practice descends from the Buddhist brahmavihāra of metta and the lojong instruction to begin compassion practice with oneself. Pema’s distinctive turn is psychological and unflinching: friendliness extended especially to the parts of ourselves we’re ashamed of. → (chodron pema).
Common refinements
Mistaking it for self-indulgence. Maitri includes “honesty and clear seeing” — it’s friendliness with truthfulness, not flattery or letting yourself off the hook.
- Making it conditional. “I’ll be kind to myself once I’ve earned it” is the opposite of unconditional friendliness. The point is to extend it now, to the unfinished, flawed self.
- Forcing warm feelings. Maitri is a stance, not a feeling you must manufacture. Dropping the attack is already maitri, even when warmth isn’t there yet.
- Skipping the unwanted parts. The practice is specifically to befriend what you reject; bypassing the hard parts hollows it out.
- Refinement: pair with shenpa work — when you notice self-aggression, that is shenpa; meet it with maitri.