What do your family/friends think about your calming behavior?
Namada
Veteran
Hi
Iam just wondering what your family think about you when they see that you are calm and still in (almost) every situation?
Do they think you are going on drugs or something other nice things?
My wife who is not a buddhist, and dont even want to listen to the teachings(unfortunatly), so she dont know
anything about non clinging, non attachment. But at same time have compassion towards "worldly things".
She think Iam strange, since I dont attach to things (most of the time) when things goes really wron, she is from Brazil
so she get nuts when something goes "wrong". I say to her, it will be fine, it will not be like this forever....
Then she just think I must have knocked my head, but she is also changing for the better when
she see iam just calm, then she also get calm after a while.
Its also a paradoxal teaching to have compassion for others, at the same time use the teaching with non clinging and non attachment.
What does people around you think about your calming behaviour? Do they see the diffrence after you started
practicing buddhism and meditation/mindfullness, do you get any comments?
This is not for self adulation, but iam just querious since a calming behaviour make every situation mutch better.
Comments
I don't know what they think, but I can give an example of it being
usefulhelpful. A few years back one of my female cousins attempted suicide. My own mother was very shaken up about it and was intensely angry at my cousin. I was calm in comparison, even though I'm much closer to my cousin than my mother is. I tried to shift the conversation to what must have been my cousin's subjective experience, her pain and suffering, that she felt the only option was to take her own life. My mother's eyes lit up when she considered that perspective. Later, I heard her on the phone talking to another family member, and she was trying to shift the conversation just as I had done. Passing it on; karma in action.First off, I'm not calm and still all the time.
If they notice at all, when I am, I suspect they couldn't care less. However, I don't really care what they think one way or the other. I didn't become a Buddhist to impress others, so to me, what they think really doesn't matter
Ok i didnt know this..
My question was more, how calm behavior can influence people around you..
I have had a similar experience to you @Namada. Thanks for your post!
My wife is not a buddhist and at first she was a bit suspicious about me heading down this path. She now sees the benefits I've gained and I can see it has started to rub off on her.
She attends a play group with our son and a number of the other parents are buddhist too (it's a Steiner / Waldorf group) and she thinks they're all wonderful!
I think she'll crack soon enough and start to meditate with me :-)
That's a little different. Calm begets calm.
Actions speak Louder than Words.
My H used to be constantly volatile, hostile and angry. He was erratic and unpredictable in his behaviour and his temperament was peppery, apparently, to say the least. The very epitome, it seems, of Leslie Paul's "Angry Young Man".
Well, then he met me. And he argued a lot. And he found it odd that someone could counter his arguments with calm logic and unarguable reason. And he began to mellow.
This isn't something of which I personally was conscious, neither was it a contrivance on my part. I just stood my ground but was gentle in my replies to him, and calmed situations where he may have previously completely flown off the handle.
And his friends and acquaintances all say how much he has changed. How mellow he is, how much calmer and serene.
But this has not been my doing.
I've just tried to do what I've always done.
if he has changed, it's because he has wanted to. If he has changed, it's because he has seen the sense of it.
He says he's with me because I am the best human being he has ever met. Ok, you can all stop laughing now.
Don't worry, I agree with you!
I strongly dispute his opinion. I'm sure he has met other people who would qualify far more than I. Otherwise, he's been mixing with some pretty scummy low-lifes, by comparison.... But I have never tried to pressure, convince, steer, or preach, in any way shape or form.
I've just done what has always worked for me, and if he has seen fit to follow suit, that has been his choice, not my insistence.
Actions lead the way, words can push away.
I had a three year break from my job as a nurse, in which I went through a lot of pain and the lessons of that pain. When I went back to nursing I got a lot of feedback and questions about how I stayed so calm. I had no idea I was 'calm' in comparison, it was information I got from others. But it made me curious about how I could stay calm and the next nurse angry or uncomfortable.
This was before I began seriously practicing, but goes to show that Buddhist practice is 'natural' rather than something the Buddha made up. I don't take what happens personally, it's not about me, it doesn't hook me in like a fish. In practicing Buddhism now, I see I was 'practicing' some of the Buddha's teachings before I knew what he taught.
People were more admiring of my calmness than not. And I would never tell someone "I'm calm because of my Buddhist practice" because not everyone wants to do Buddhist practice. But they DO want to suffer less. So I said I just don't take things to be personal about me. I'm afraid this was as baffling as if I'd attributed it all to Buddhism :buck: .
I think my wife is just glad that I no longer have the urge to tear people's heads off. Figuratively speaking, of course.
@Namada
I am just wondering what your family thinks about you when they see that you are calm and still in (almost) every situation?
One can appear to be calm and still through the suppression of ones emotions
and
one can be calm and still through the addressing of sufferings cause.
While these two can look similar, they are easily discerned by the different fruit that they produce.
The former state requires the presentation of an un disturbed demeanor but is unlikely to illuminate why those around you may see that undisturbed behavior as troublesome.
The latter state is not bound by any particular presentation of any demeanor and will illuminate** why** an identity that is attached to stimulation will find anyone not showing similar attachments, to be a direct identity threat.
An occasional self check of which state you are manifesting is as helpful to a spiritual practice as it is to a marriage.
I have never been the embodiment of the sweet and mellow Buddhist -more of the ninja, taskmaster sort- so whenever I fly off the roof, nobody is quite surprised.
Yet, it takes a lot for me to lose my cool since I tread the Buddhist path, and I am very resilient even through the hardest circumstances.
That tends to surprise my beloved ones more.
and
one can be calm and still through the addressing of sufferings cause.
Yes indeed.
Sila, kind and calm, courteous behaviour requires discipline or suppression of our negative tendencies. It is a contrived or adopted behaviour but an important commitment we can choose to attempt or just remain chained to our 'perfect flaws' (a sort of half digested dzogchen or pseudo crazy zen babbling).
As @how mentions the real calm comes from understanding why we drink, fear, rage, flounder, run from problems or to them, etc.
The first inferior calm is a put on behaviour the second is a revelation and dissolving.
Most of us are so caught up in our suffering, we have to control or discipline dukkhas excesses. It is of course these very real hindrances that are the potential sources as teachers and unfoldings into karma calm.
So for me anger is a form of fear, my fear is of physical and emotional pain that is not being imposed. In other words my anger and fear is illusionary . . .
Lobster: In other words my anger and fear is illusionary . ..
Its not always so easy to see that fear is illusionary, when you are standing in the middle of the river, with mr. fear and the rest on the family hanging on your shoulders, then you are already caught in trap which is planted out from mr. Samsara. And How do you get loose from it?
Maybe like Ajahn Brahm said, stop and watch, be aware... (samadhi) and then use your wisdom to let it go. Telling your self, this is not sure! Its impermanent.
The hardest part is to let go, maybe you made a huge mistake and cant forgive your self for this mistake. Doubt arise and the bad circel start, but to brake this circel you need to let it go and start with a fresh mind, giving yourself and others a new chance. I think Calm can only arise from a happy and free mind.
What do you do when you are attached to something, and these hindrances of doubt fear and anger appears? Is it easy for you to let it go or (of course it depends of the sitation) ?
Everything is mind? This is central to some Buddhist philosophy. Personally I find the body, heart and karma (manifesting in others, samsara and ignorance) are not totally free of all ignorance. In other words what is the extent of the calm, happy and free condition?
The situation is the circle of calm and letting go extends with practice. I am not attached to ignorance, samsara or unskillfulness in myself or others. These illusionary situations still exist and arise. The best I can do is have compassion for them. A work in progress.
Hope that makes sense.
Yes, i think the same lobster, igorance still exist, so its better welcoming your fear and be friend with it, but then you also need a lot of courage to stay with your fear and try to go out of your comfort sone, doing things you dont like. So do you sometimes tests your courage? Like the monks in the thaiforest tradition, meditating in a jungel of tigers in middle of the night? Thats maybe little bit extreme
But I think it can be good to test your own courage and endurance sometimes, ang getting out of the comfort sone, to improve your practice of mindfullness, and your awarness..
Yes indeed.
Sadly the last tigers around here were the extinct sabre tooths.
However in the concrete jungle we have wer-tigers and other animals. So for example I recently had a conversation with a couple of guys, one described himself as a 'bit of an animal'. Not sure if that was a fighting or sexual reference - maybe both. Most people were quite wary of them. However they were respectful of me as I was of them. If I was not calm and respectful it might have ended unskilfully instead of mutual friendliness . . .
The point is to not be foolhardy or courageous beyond our capacity.
I remember being on a retreat where we had to regularly walk back in darkness a couple of miles to our sleeping area. Most people used torches and companions. I preferred to watch the tendency of the mind to make fearful and non existent threats in the the dark woods. I considered this practice.
Of late I have found a back gate to a local cemetry, I have no fear associated with such places, so it is a calm place. Others might have more to contend with . . .
So by all means find those tigers, demons and dark places and send them metta . . .
.
The old poem springs to mind:
I love myself
I think I'm grand
I go to the movies
And hold my hand.
I put my arm
Around my waist
And when I'm fresh,
I slap my face.
Lobster It sounds interesting to try to meditate at the cemetry place, its kind of creepy when its dark i guess..
You havent seen any ghosts jet hehe?
I think i would be more scared if some people found me there sitting in the evening, they would think iam crazy. And my city is not big either.
"What do your family/friends think about your calming behavior? "
My family are living either overseas or in another part of the country...So this is more so about my friends reactions.....
I would have to say it could well depend on the particular friend's moods(where their mind's at at the time), so it's possibly a touch of the following could be involved: thoughts of Jealousy, envy, frustration, a wish to disturb/disrupt this calm state or appreciation, admiration, respect, desire to be like....(The latter from what I gather from friends being the most common thoughts)....
Calmness comes due to not attaching a story to the event that's taking place, there's no suppression of feelings, just no attachment to them as they arise, but not in a cold non-empathic way, just "mindfully" filtering out the "unnecessary" crap....
All my friends know of my spiritual path and that I meditate, so it would seem they've put two & two together...
"Don't practice to become enlightened-Let your practice be the natural expression of your Enlightenment!"
Can't be bothered to read the rest of this thread - I deal with family situations all the time - I'm not MR CALM BUDDHA -
I'm MR ANGRY and DADDY Cool,
I'm fixing the bonfire at my kids school (british 5th November ritual),
I do what I do to do what I feel is best
sometimes I'm wrong
and sometimes that's best
I'm only human after all -
don't expect me to be more than MR SMALL