Interesting reading

"Although, in reality, there is only one single individual continuum,
you can adopt two different perspectives. What takes place when you are
criticizing yourself? The "self" that is criticizing is done from a perspective
of yourself as a totality, your entire being, and the "self" that is being criticized
is a self from a perspective of a particular experience of a particular event. So you
can see the possibility of having this "self-to-self relationship".
 To expand on this point, it may be quite helpful to reflect upon the various aspects
of one's own personal identity. Let us take the example of a Tibetan Buddhist monk.
That individual can have a sense of personalized identity from the perspective of his
being a monk, "myself as a monk." And then he can also have a level of person identity
that is not so much based upon his consideration of monkhood but rather of his ethnic
origin, like Tibetan, so he can say, "I as a Tibetan." And then at another level, that person
can have another identity in which monkhood and ethnic origin may not play any important
role. He can think, "I as a human being." So you can see different perspectives within each
person's individual identity.."

"Some people suggest that anger, hatred and other negative emotions are a natural part of our mind. They feel that since these are a natural part of our makeup, there is no way to really change these mental states. But that is wrong. Now, for example, all of us are born in an ignorant state. In this sense, ignorance is also quite natural. Anyway, when we are young, we are quite ignorant. But as we grow, day by day, through education and learning we can acquire knowledge and dispel ignorance. However, if we leave ourselves in an ignorant state without consciously developing our learning, we won't be able to dispel our ignorance. So, if we leave ourselves in a "natural state" without making the effort to dispel it, then the opposing factors or forces of education and learning to not come naturally. And in the same way, through proper training we can gradually reduce our negative emotions and increase positive states of mind such as love, compassion and forgiveness.." - HH Dalai Lama