From Pema Chödrön's The Wisdom of No Escape, Chapter 1 ("Loving-Kindness"):

... loving-kindness—maitri— toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of anything. Maitri means that we can still be crazy after all these years. We can still be angry after all these years. We can still be timid or jealous or full of feelings of unworthiness. The point is not to try to change ourselves. Meditation practice isn't about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It's about befriending who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are. That's the ground, that's what we study, that's what we come to know with tremendous curiosity and interest.

(cf. Bodhichitta, Maitri, Shunyata (2014-07-16), ...) - ^z - 2015-05-15