Who doesn’t feel blown around by the hurricane winds of modern life? Information overload, job burnout, political and ecological threats, and seemingly endless culture wars make daily life feel challenging, isolating, and draining. Into this speedy wonderland of algorithms come soothing voices saying that what we need is self-care. They tell us to take time out and have a spa day, binge some Netflix, do some yoga, or attend an online seminar on mindfulness or mental health. 

Granted, these things can be good and nourishing. Slowness and stillness are needed to reconnect with ourselves and attend to our own well-being. Yet from a Buddhist point of view, the notion of “self-care” calls for rigorous and tender questioning. The buddhadharma centers around the idea of no-self, or going beyond thinking in terms of self and not-self, and dharma practice is intended to gently shift our focus away from the “self.” In contrast, the focus on self-care may, ironically, harden our perception of a  boundary between self and others, a perception that causes us suffering and feeds our obsession over whether we’re good enough. So, what is a dharmic perspective on self-care?

This question arose in me while speaking to a doctor in the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship, which I lead with my husband, Chodo, at the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. The doctor told me, in tears, that he felt he was failing at self-care; unlike some of his peers, he couldn’t seem to find time for it. Self-care had become, for him, just another item on his checklist of being a good person. And it isn’t just this doctor who feels this way. I’ve heard similar accounts of defeat from people of various ages and walks of life across the United States and abroad. 

“The focus on self-care may, ironically, harden our perception of a  boundary between self and others, a perception that causes us suffering and feeds our obsession over whether we’re good enough.”

This, I believe, is because not all questions posed in the pursuit of self-care are based in what the Buddha called “appropriate attention.” He defined inappropriate or unskillful attention as asking, “Who am I? What am I? Where did this being come from, and where is it going to?” In other words, thinking in terms of self isn’t helpful. But if we’re honest, I, me, and mine is usually the crux of our internal dialogue—even though getting entangled in issues of self is so often followed by waves of depression or self-recrimination.

Appropriate attention is paying attention to what we’re doing and to the effects of our actions. In the sutta Instructions to Rahula at Mango Stone, the Buddha explains this to his son, the young monk Rahula. The Buddha advises him to ask himself, before doing something, whether it will lead to suffering or well-being for himself, or others, or both himself and others. While doing something, he should be mindful of the likely results, and afterward he should note the actual results and how they’re impacting others. This contemplation is all about relationships.   

One of the many healing things about the Buddha’s approach is that it protects us from the isolation of our own theories, opinions, thoughts, and feelings. It redirects our attention from concepts to what actually works for us—the big us. Although slowing down, seeking support, and taking care of your mental and physical health are essential things to do, framing this as “the importance of self-care” may not work well in the long term. The simple litmus test is to notice how pursuing self-care affects our lives. If it works for you, do it in good health. You may find, though, like many people I know, that the very pursuit of self-care is often a short-term solution at best. At worst, it becomes another thing to feel pressure and shame about. 

The wisdom literature of the bodhisattvas says that one should abide in compassion beyond subject and object. What’s needed, perhaps, is not self-compassion, but the cultivation of compassion as an unconditional attitude, a home for the mind beyond dualities and concepts. And in each moment, we can discern where the suffering lies, and where our attention—and therefore our compassion and care—is needed. Sometimes what calls to us is our own suffering, sometimes it’s that of others. Which one we’re attending to is not so important. What’s needed is simply “care,” not “self-care.” 

We can learn a lot about care and compassion from the Chinese text The Complete Tale of Guanyin. The bodhisattva of compassion, Guanyin vowed to free beings from hell realms, and after freeing a huge number, she turned around to see that just as many remained to be saved. As her head exploded in grief and her arms shattered in frustration, Amitabha Buddha, who some say represents the mind’s inherent wisdom, supplied her with eleven heads and a thousand arms to reach out to the suffering.

What does this mean? The way I see it, this teaches us that the solution to Guanyin’s problem is found in the multiple heads and arms of community. Even introverts need community, and many studies show that connection, giving to others, and being heard and supported by them, can be so rewarding that they are regularly recommended by mental health experts as essential replacements for heroin and other addictive sources of dopamine. “Sangha” is the Buddhist term for supportive community, those who have realized they need to band together, fight for sanity, and support each other with love. Sangha is one of the three jewels of Buddhism. You can’t have the other two—buddha and dharma—without it.

I personally have struggled and thrived through engagement with buddha, dharma, and sangha: engineering buddha mind through practice and my relationship with my Zen teacher; diving deep into experience through dharma study of moment-to-moment experience and sutras; and committing to sangha where I am constantly being shown the edges of my compassion and encouraged to widen the circle more and more—just like the vow of Guanyin.

Our own arms are not enough. We need the thousand arms of Guanyin, which can only be found when we surrender both our isolation and fixation on “self,” giving ourselves over to the prickly, uncontrollable, contrary, diverse, healing, nourishing, wise, educational, and essential reality of true community. So, the next time you’re feeling guilty because of your lack of self-care, set it down gently. Slow down, rest, and find the help you need. Then rest in the nondual mind and the bodhisattva’s relentless intention of compassion. Join the dance of Guanyin’s thousand arms, moving together in the flow of a beloved community. Let it carry you, and you may find that soon you’re not thinking about whether or not you’re caring for yourself adequately anymore. You’re neither seeking to inflate the self through martyrdom nor coddling it through pampering. Instead, you’re living in the free, open sky of compassion, seeing what Guanyin’s thousand arms can do next. Let’s do this together.