Last night when I did the Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation and when I got to ourselves I asked you to think about when you were 6 years old, 10 years old, 15 years old. Now imagine I have a photograph of myself when I was 6 years old and put it right here. And then I ask you - "Is that me?" It doesn't even look like me at all. It's not me, it can't be me. That is a 6 year old, I am a 57 year old, that can't be me. I came from that person, but that person is not me. A picture of me when I was10 years old, when I was15 years old, it is not me. I have come from that person, but I am not that person. That person did not know everything, made mistakes, was ignorant.
The person I am now knows more, I am not as ignorant, I don't make as many mistakes. That 6 year old was very similar to a few million 6 year olds alive today. The 10 year old that I was was similar to many 10 year olds alive today. In that way we want to forgive who we were when we were 6, because we did not know better, we want to forgive who we were when we were 10, when we were 15, when we were 20, when we were 25, whatever age, we want to forgive who we were yesterday, if we did something that wasn't so wise yesterday. This is moral shame together with forgiveness, but there is no need to hate ourselves for it. To acknowledge it was wrong, yes.
Now what are we going to do with the acknowledgement that it was wrong? We want to never do it again in the future. Now if we don't do it again in the future, then that is who we are, a person who does not do that any more. Now you are looking at somebody who was never had a drink of alcohol in his life. Yet when I was 20 years old, I would get drunk occasionally. What did I say? I just said you are looking at someone who has never drunk alcohol in his life, but when I was 20 I got drunk occasionally. The life I am in right now, I don't drink alcohol, I have never drunk alcohol - who I am now. The person I used to be, that person drank alcohol sometimes. But I am not that person.
If I counted back how many years it is since I last had a drink of alcohol, wow, neat! Longer than some of you are here in this life. Neat. That is who I am, that gives me joy. This is a way how you want to develop you happiness with who you are today, because you are not doing those things from your past that you now see are wrong. Forgive that person, they did not know any better. In the same way that you forgive a child who is naughty. How many parents say that their child is naughty, the kid comes right before dinner and asks, "Mummy, can I have a candy?" - "No dear, you have to wait for dinner." And then 5 minutes later she discovers the kid stole some candy out of the candy jar. Will a wise parent hate the kid? No.
A wise parent has to tell the child that what they did was wrong, to teach them what is right and possibly give the child some type of punishment to stop them doing it again, but does the parent you hate them? In the same way we don't want to hate who we were. Who we were before was a kid or a younger person with ignorance, someone who didn't know any better. So to open our hearts to who we were and make a dedication to do better in the future, and then to identify more with that good person that we have become.