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how do you deal with the suffering of selfishness?
I do have an actual question today that I didn't make up.
A while ago, I was talking to my grandmother, she is an older lady, she has a strong willed mind. She use to be a little more happier untill she really started watching foxnews.
One day she started to cry, I feel sad for her and tried to comfort her.
I got to the root of her suffering finally.
It turns out that she was sad because almost none of her children (my parent, aunts, uncles) or us grant children turned out to be neither christian, or not as devout, or not her type of christianity as she was in her 11 brothers and sisters stout catholic famliy.
She feels like she failed her god and us.
I feel her pain and feel compasion for her, but at the same time, I feel in the back of my head "Wait...who do you think you are?"
Then today she called what I believe in evil, and then when I tried confronting her about fox news and what they say about everything and how brain washed she is becoming, she gave me the standard nonthinking foxnew defenses that they tell her there veiwers to say.
I still love her, no what I did wasn't right. I don't know how to talk to her, she thinks that what she believes is the only way. Then she turns to justify things in life with fox news philosophy.
I still want her to be free from suffering but I can't help a person who's glass is already full.
So basically, what should I do?
p.s. (and no, I didn't mean the I wanted to convert her to buddhism.)
A while ago, I was talking to my grandmother, she is an older lady, she has a strong willed mind. She use to be a little more happier untill she really started watching foxnews.
One day she started to cry, I feel sad for her and tried to comfort her.
I got to the root of her suffering finally.
It turns out that she was sad because almost none of her children (my parent, aunts, uncles) or us grant children turned out to be neither christian, or not as devout, or not her type of christianity as she was in her 11 brothers and sisters stout catholic famliy.
She feels like she failed her god and us.
I feel her pain and feel compasion for her, but at the same time, I feel in the back of my head "Wait...who do you think you are?"
Then today she called what I believe in evil, and then when I tried confronting her about fox news and what they say about everything and how brain washed she is becoming, she gave me the standard nonthinking foxnew defenses that they tell her there veiwers to say.
I still love her, no what I did wasn't right. I don't know how to talk to her, she thinks that what she believes is the only way. Then she turns to justify things in life with fox news philosophy.
I still want her to be free from suffering but I can't help a person who's glass is already full.
So basically, what should I do?
p.s. (and no, I didn't mean the I wanted to convert her to buddhism.)
0
Comments
:thumbup:
Reverend MacLean: For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.
As a Christian you believe that you are judged at that moment and that must be frightening for some. A lot of elderly people get emotional and scared as they start to consider their own death. Have you tried talking to her about how she feels about this subject?
Good Luck
(P.S. - I used to work with elderly people)
I have to agree with who wondered if your grandma might be a little afraid. My grandma went through this a year ago. She is old, 87 now, but was chugging along just fine. Then all of a sudden she got very sick. She was faced with dying, and as much as she talked about being ready, she really was not. She had a lot to get off her chest, to talk to her family and friends about, to come to terms with herself. She was not as ready to die as she thought, and was very afraid of it. Once that became clear to us, we started talking to her about it, very carefully and gently, mostly asking questions, never accusing her of being scared. Once she started to think about it, she realized she wasn't as unafraid as she thought, and she started working with her pastor on that.
I doubt she thinks you are evil. But she is from an age where so many people are in right now, that anything they don't understand, is to be feared. You can use your practice to love and support her without having to talk to her about it. You can even draw a whole lot of parallels between what Buddha taught, and what Jesus taught, if you get rid of all the stories and other things. I don't mean to bring it up as a discussion, but maybe it would help you to re-read what Jesus actually taught and notice how close it is to so much of what Buddha taught. It might help you reconnect with her.
What if this happens to you in 50 years time... would your grandmother be around for you to say, hey, you were right?
She needs love and reassurance - God helpfully has a very wide definition... the church is a broad one so to speak - with care, smiles, appropriate silences and sageful nods, it may be possible to convince your grandmother that she has not failed in saving your eternal soul.
Make all your memories together good ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anussati