I’d say that for 2s any school that puts a lot of emphasis on Avalokiteshvara and his alternative forms, such as Chenrezig, Green Tara, or Guanyin, works quite well, since he/she/they involve a lot of emphasis on compassion and unconditional love. Vajrayana schools, for obvious reasons, do this a lot, so going with one of the Tibetan ones, or with Chinese Tientai, or with one of the two Japanese ones (Tendai or Shingon), works best. Mahayana also puts some emphasis on them, though less so than Vajrayana. From these, Pure Land does it the most, and Zen does a little.
Several Taoist schools, as well as syncretic Buddhist/Taoist ones, also emphasize them, so those are also good alternatives.
That’s good to know! I think what’s tricky is that 2s really need to receive unconditional love in that it’s the thing they want and also the thing they think they don’t deserve. Most of my experience suggests practices tend to focus a lot on getting the practitioner to feel unconditional love towards others. Yes, there’s an expectation that others includes self, but this is often specifically where people get tripped up with, say, metta practice, and aren’t really given tools to solve it other than “keep going, you’ll start to feel love for yourself”.
I could imagine a Buddhism that, say, made a big deal of how Avalokiteshvara personally loves you unconditionally would be good ground for a 2s practice to begin.
(Also, not stated above, but the epistemics around what a 2 needs are really fraught! This is something I also don’t know how to solve.)
I’d say that for 2s any school that puts a lot of emphasis on Avalokiteshvara and his alternative forms, such as Chenrezig, Green Tara, or Guanyin, works quite well, since he/she/they involve a lot of emphasis on compassion and unconditional love. Vajrayana schools, for obvious reasons, do this a lot, so going with one of the Tibetan ones, or with Chinese Tientai, or with one of the two Japanese ones (Tendai or Shingon), works best. Mahayana also puts some emphasis on them, though less so than Vajrayana. From these, Pure Land does it the most, and Zen does a little.
Several Taoist schools, as well as syncretic Buddhist/Taoist ones, also emphasize them, so those are also good alternatives.
That’s good to know! I think what’s tricky is that 2s really need to receive unconditional love in that it’s the thing they want and also the thing they think they don’t deserve. Most of my experience suggests practices tend to focus a lot on getting the practitioner to feel unconditional love towards others. Yes, there’s an expectation that others includes self, but this is often specifically where people get tripped up with, say, metta practice, and aren’t really given tools to solve it other than “keep going, you’ll start to feel love for yourself”.
I could imagine a Buddhism that, say, made a big deal of how Avalokiteshvara personally loves you unconditionally would be good ground for a 2s practice to begin.
(Also, not stated above, but the epistemics around what a 2 needs are really fraught! This is something I also don’t know how to solve.)