As we approach the end of the year, the holiday season invites us to loosen up and allow ourselves a moment of repose and relaxation. It is the season when “treat yourself” becomes a mantra and a bit of self-love is not only welcome but deeply encouraged.
Self-care is important. So is rest, rejuvenation, and spending time doing things that bring us satisfaction. Nevertheless, we often tend to confuse the concept of being kind to ourselves with doing whatever feels good. While the latter may feel good in small doses, it often leads to self-destructive tendencies that do more long-term harm than good. Thus, the holiday season’s invitation to unwind comes with an important question: how do we let ourselves rest without slipping into indulgence that ultimately drains rather than restores us?
The Buddha’s paramitas or Six Perfections are practices that lead one toward enlightenment. They are wisdom, generosity, morality, patience, meditation, and diligence. Specifically, diligence (Skt. virya) refers to the constant energy and effort one must put into their spiritual practice, which encompasses the remaining paramitas.
The perfection of diligence is not about pushing oneself harshly but about showing up again and again with sincerity, even when we may not be excited about it. These small moments of intentional presence have the potential to accumulate into deep transformation. Diligence, like all Buddhist practices, is not passive. Rather, a diligent Buddhist practice requires discipline. This means choosing what is truly beneficial over what is immediately pleasant. It is the discipline of returning to the path, not out of self-punishment, but out of an understanding of cause and effect.
The Buddha often emphasized that wholesome actions lead to wholesome results and unwholesome actions lead to suffering. Diligence, then, is the steady willingness to align ourselves with what leads toward clarity and well-being, even when the mind would rather reach for distraction, comfort, or momentary relief.
In Buddhist practice, this might look like sitting down for meditation even when the day has been long and the couch feels more inviting. It might look like pausing before reacting to a difficult emotion and choosing patience over an immediate release, or perhaps saying no to a habit that numbs us, and saying yes to something that nourishes us and our communities instead, even if it asks more of us in the moment.
This differs sharply from self-indulgence, which often masquerades as self-care. Self-indulgence says, “I deserve to feel good right now,” even if “right now” comes at the cost of later suffering. Self-compassion, grounded in diligence, says, “I deserve to be well,” which sometimes means tolerating discomfort in service of a deeper kindness. In this way, discipline in Buddhism isn’t forceful or rigid. It’s gentle, steadfast, and rooted in compassion. It recognizes that true well-being doesn’t arrive through entertaining the mind’s every whim but from patiently guiding it toward what is ultimately liberating.
The need for discipline does not end at spiritual practice. It is necessary in all aspects of our lives—in meeting goals, staying healthy, maintaining connections, and much more. The Buddha emphasized this through daily-life teachings, which outline balanced conduct for caring for one’s health, maintaining relationships, fulfilling responsibilities, and generally acting with integrity.
In modern terms, this might translate as keeping boundaries, limiting overconsumption, doing the unglamorous tasks that maintain a stable life, and practicing patient speech during conflict. All are forms of discipline that support inner and outer harmony. It is important to keep in mind that the discipline I speak of is not some self-mortifying “hustle,” as we often see in the media.
We should not feel shackled to exhausting routines and flagellant rituals under the guise of discipline. We can be diligent while also being gentle. Far from being rigid, discipline protects what we value most: our clarity, our relationships, and our well-being.
Nevertheless, practicing self-discipline is difficult, especially when we have spent our lives developing undisciplined habits. It becomes even more of a challenge to overcome those bad habits when we get comfortable with mislabeling our lack of discipline as a form of “self-care.”
A person may tell themselves that skipping difficult conversations or medicating discomfort through various indulgences is “self-care,” but in reality these behaviors often stem from avoidance.
True self-compassion, as taught by the Buddha, is about offering ourselves what reduces suffering in the long run, even when it requires courage or temporary discomfort. The Buddha warned his followers that pleasure chased without wisdom ultimately entrenches us in the cycle of suffering.
In my own case, I often like to stay up late and binge-watch my favorite television shows. I have habitually told myself “one more episode” over and over again until finding myself awake far past a reasonable hour. For a long time, I excused this as my “me time.”
Nevertheless, my “me time” has directly led to fatigue and a weakened immune system due to a poor sleep schedule. Ultimately, my excuse for “self-care” and “me time” is not much more than an unhealthy and undisciplined habit that I would be far better off without.
When “self-care” becomes a justification for impulsive or avoidant behavior, it ceases to be care at all. There are countless ways that we phrase our aversions and lack of diligence, and many of them are commonly accepted in modern culture and dialogue. When we don’t feel like cooking a healthy meal or moving our bodies, we can simply say we “deserve a break,” and nobody will think twice. Similarly, we can excuse avoiding difficult but necessary conversations under the guise of “protecting our peace,” when in reality we are not meant to live life in a constant state of comfort.
When our bodies, hearts, and minds require rest, it is important to honor that. So this is not to say that we should be hard on ourselves for needing rest or seeking pleasure, but rather, it is important for us to remain mindful about how much we are indulging. And when we do choose to indulge every so often, the least we can do is remain aware of it. We can and should take accountability and practice reflection without feeling guilt or shame for simply being human.
Similarly, while enjoying some indulgences is part of human joy, we should stay mindful of the degree to which we are enjoying them, so as to be able to reset ourselves before we become hooked on unhealthy habits or lose self-awareness.
With that in mind, it is still undeniable that a true practice of self-compassion means sometimes putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions, because most often, discomfort leads us to learn and grow. We show ourselves love by practicing discipline and doing the things that will make us better, even in the moments where we would rather fall back into our comfort zones.
Without mindfulness, these self-indulgent behaviors subtly erode our well-being. With mindfulness, we can discern the difference between nurturing ourselves and indulging. When I personally realized that I was spending far too much time watching television and enjoying mind-numbing activities that did not nurture my body or soul, I put in place a set of rules for myself. I now practice discipline by holding myself accountable even when I don’t feel like it, because ultimately, my health and well-being are significantly greater when I practice diligence and hold myself accountable for bad habits I once mislabelled as self-care.
Ultimately, the difference between self-compassion and self-indulgence lies in their long-term effects, which can be recognized through enhanced awareness. Self-indulgence seeks immediate comfort; self-compassion seeks liberation from suffering. One soothes the surface; the other heals the roots. When we take up the Buddha’s invitation to examine our motivations with honesty, we discover that discipline is not the enemy of kindness—it is one of its deepest expressions. To care for ourselves is to commit to our own awakening, to act not only for the comfort of the present moment but for the freedom of all future moments.
This is the heart of the path: a compassionate discipline that supports us, steadies us, and ultimately leads us home.
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