Ok, the first part, is sadness or grief a type of self-pity? It probably is. We don't like to see the world this way, we become sad, we have grief. Ok, Monopoly. Most if not all of you have played monopoly. If you never have, it is a board game. You roll the dice, you move a gizmo around the board, you make money, you lose money, you land in jail, you buy hotels, all sorts of things. For kids around the world they love the game, many adults as well. Imagine that you are ten years old and that you are playing Monopoly, having a nice fun time with two other kids. There is a new kid on the street and you have met them once or twice and they come to visit you while you are playing Monopoly. They see you playing and they have never played Monopoly before. So they say, "Hey that looks like a neat game can I play too?" And you say, "Sure we're almost done with this game, pretty soon we will start a new one. We will teach you all the rules. It's a good fun game." The kid says, "Oh good." So you start a new game and you explain the rules to the kid and as you are playing the kid lands in jail. The kid sees themselves in jail and picks themselves up and puts themselves out. And you say, "No, no wait a minute you can't do that you have to stay in jail until you roll the dice a certain way, pay some money, this or that." And the kid goes, "No, no, I am not staying in jail." And you say, "No, but see the rules are that you have to stay in jail until..." "I am not staying in jail, my mommy and daddy tell me jail is a bad place."
Are you going to play with that kid? No. Why? Because they won't play by the rules. Life has its rules. Dukkha is one of those rules. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not. It doesn't matter whether you want to close your eyes to it or not. It doesn't matter whether you even know about it or not. Dukkha is one of those rules. Now if we understand Dukkha more, then we can play by the rules. We can have more "fun". So when sadness and grief come, what is sadness and grief looking at? Dukkha. Why get sad? Why have grief? It is just Dukkha. "I don't like to see it, I don't want to see it. My world has been bothered." Ok, it is a type of self-pity, I am feeling sorry for me, my world.
Would you advise to deal with each one in a different way? Sadness and grief, self-pity, open up the compassion, open up the reflection on Dukkha. It is for real. It is all the time. Open up your wisdom, open up your compassion. That is going to solve your self-pity; that is going to solve your grief. Self-pity, I have said often, is opposite to reflecting on How Fortunate You Are. When we reflect on how fortunate we are, we are not looking at Dukkha, are we? We are looking at what we have that is valuable, especially the Dhamma. The Dhamma is not Dukkha. But when people get carried away looking at Dukkha, Dukkha, Dukkha, it gets heavy. Self-pity is easily there. So open up to accept Dukkha more; open up your heart to have Compassion/Lovingkindness to everyone who does not accept Dukkha, including yourself.
Can it be helpful to understand more about the causes for sadness and how to prevent going into self-pity at the same time? Yes, of course. You want to understand sadness. You want to understand why you are rejecting Dukkha. You want to look at it and say, "Ok, I'll play by the rules." You can keep your Dukkha if you want, but all you are going to get is more Dukkha. So you really have to open this up more and more.