to be happy

I can accept and tolerate anybody. I can't accept myself.

My student told me this today during a quiet moment before class. She brought me her favourite book to read, showed me a self-made book of her poems and ....she talked to me.

I can't accept myself.

Accepting myself would mean tolerating my beliefs, looks, actions... Who creates all those?
My looks are given to me at birth, there is little I can do to change them besides staying "in shape"...
My beliefs develop as I grow in my lifetime..
My actions result from my choices and bring consequences, immediate or long term...

My student is in pain because she can not accept herself.

I thought that a person who needs reassurance in such matters would likely believe someone he or she trusts as one trusts a Teacher. Connecting to my student as a teacher would give me a tremendously rare chance to truly relieve her suffering.

It is important for some of us to know that we are OK.
Some of us developed an idea that it is not important whether or not one is OK, because being good means being yourself in the only way that it is possible to be oneself: to be born and grow absorbing beliefs and choosing actions.

Acceptance without exception.

"To accept others and not to accept oneself" is not so different from "to accept oneself and not to accept others".

A person knowing, believing that one is same as others and others are same as one,
will truly accept others as oneself and oneself as others.

As a teacher I need to point out to my student that we are all basically the same.

I will start from this.

I will start tomorrow.
.