When I am teaching in the West, people talk about self-loathing and self-aggression. That is coming from a sense of unworthiness…. Without a feeling of worthiness, human society and communication naturally become vehicles of manipulation and deception, and we use every activity to shore ourselves up or to outdo someone else. Through this false sense of power, life becomes a perpetual unfolding of doubt, which only confirms the inadequacies we perceive and elicits a feeling of alienation. My father called it the “setting sun”. This term describes a time when humanities sense of dignity and purpose is diminishing, like sunlight at the end of the day. What is setting is our ability to recognize our goodness.
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche