Ending a friendship
Bunks
Australia Veteran
Hi all
Just after a little wise advice on the best way to end a friendship.
There have been times over the years I've forgiven this person things but his most recent behaviour is completely unacceptable and has made me realise I could not trust him again and it's best to let go and move on.
We probably only catch up a couple of times a year when I go back to my home town to see my parents.
He has tried to call me a couple of times recently and I've ignored him but I realise at some stage I need to tell him I no longer want to see him. I don't feel comfortable just continually ignoring him as that doesn't seem particularly fair. We've known each other for 35 years (since primary school).
The fly in the ointment is that I can't tell him what he did for me to end our friendship as I have promised the person who told me what he did that I will not say anything.
Any advice appreciated.....
Comments
Perhaps you can say that as the years have passed, you have found your interests and priorities have changed. No hard feelings, but your life has led you on a different path and wish him well.
Peace to you
You don’t need to tell him WHY, but you DO need to tell him what. That is the compassionate thing to do. And Buddhism pushes compassion because the less we focus on ourselves, the less we become “stuck” in our attachments and aversions.
Now if I was to ask my teacher (who is one of the Dalai Lama’s senior monks and a geshe, living/teaching in my city), he would tell me to welcome this aggravating person and to see them as my “kind teacher”, a “precious jewel difficult to find”, because they inadvertently point out where I am “stuck” in my attachments and aversions, so then I can work on relaxing about them. Easier said than done, but Buddhism is NOT about running away from whatever makes us unhappy. It is about relaxing into whatever makes us unhappy.
However, Pema Chodron, a Western Tibetan nun who teaches, says that if you are not up to the task … you are not up to the task. And that anyone can think they have mastered themselves if they make sure their aversions are never challenged.
This set of verses is very useful … after 6-10 years of saying them out loud daily. Maybe you are a quicker study than I am. The concepts of these verses is SO different from how we Westerners see things, that I flinched for many years … and I am still limited in my ability to be a Buddhist, as outlined in these teachings. But these verses are the essence of Buddhism relating to our own ego and to others:
Eight Verses for Training the Mind
by Langri Thangpa
With a determination to accomplish
The highest welfare for all sentient beings
Who surpass even a wish-granting jewel
I will learn to hold them supremely dear.
Whenever I associate with others I will learn
To think of myself as the lowest among all
And respectfully hold others to be supreme
From the very depths of my heart.
In all actions I will learn to search into my mind
And as soon as an afflictive emotion arises
Endangering myself and others
Will firmly face and avert it.
I will learn to cherish beings of bad nature
And those oppressed by strong sins and suffering
As if I had found a precious
Treasure very difficult to find.
When others out of jealousy treat me badly
With abuse, slander, and so on,
I will learn to take on all loss,
And offer victory to them.
When one whom I have benefited with great hope
Unreasonably hurts me very badly,
I will learn to view that person
As an excellent spiritual guide.
In short, I will learn to offer to everyone without exception
All help and happiness directly and indirectly
And respectfully take upon myself
All harm and suffering of my mothers.
I will learn to keep all these practices
Undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions
And by understanding all phenomena as like illusions
Be released from the bondage of attachment.
Thanks @FoibleFull.
So are you suggesting I should still continue my friendship with this person after he has harmed two people I am very close to?
Because I can forgive him and have compassion for him but not have anything to do with him anymore yes?
If I may offer a different perspective... I think Compassion begins with ourselves. If something hurts or pains us, why keep inflicting the wound? Remember 'the oxygen mask on a plane' scenario...
It may not be exactly the same thing but I remember dealing with two emotional vampires... they sapped my energy and every time I thought of them and their problems, my shoulders sank, my mind lowered into depression and frustration, and they took over my working, day-to-day consciousness...
In the end, I wrote to them and emphasised how important joy and serenity were to me, so there were some painful things I had to do, one of which was to ditch the flaky friends.
I thanked them for their attention, but I was closing the door on this episode, and retreating from any contact. I told them I wished them Joy, peace and a happy life, but I was ceasing all contact. Any attempt on their part to connect in response, or re-connect down the line, would be met with silence.
One of them did write back to me.
I have absolutely no idea what she wrote, because I burned the letter immediately.
No further contact from either 'friend' ever ensued again.
As I've gotten older, I've outgrown several friends. I've never felt the need to tell them why or give an explanation. I've just always been the type of person that I run with you until I don't. That's it. Clean break is the best, I think.
"So are you suggesting I should still continue my friendship with this person after he has harmed two people I am very close to?"
I am not suggesting anything. No one judges another on their practice, and until we are enlightened it is unrealistic to expect us to BE enlightened. I'm just telling you what our teaches say is our GOAL ... but not necessarily what we are capable of now.
And yes, Frederica is correct .. the teachings DO say that compassion starts with being compassionate for ourselves. But this is not the same thing as indulging our aversions by avoiding situations that challenge us.
IF we are with someone who is hurting US, then in self-protection it is important to withdraw from that situation. But we need to distinguish ... are they the ones hurting us, or it is our inner emotional response that is hurting us? We cannot apply a remedy until we see the source.
But again ... we need to have patience, tolerance, and compassion for our own responses (all coming from an understanding of our ignorance and lack of skillful means). We can only do what we can do. But that doesn't mean that remaining unskillful should be our goal.
There is really no 'best way' unless it's a mutual agreement @Bunks...Which ever way you decide to end it will be the 'right' way to end it....
Everyone, me maybe more than most
has done things deserving the ending of a relationship. So cutting us off makes us aware of where our naughtiness lays. 
Just don't waste your twice a year time on them baddie buddhas. Job done. Praise Buddha, what a good boy she was ...
The deed is done!
He tried calling me again yesterday morning. I didn’t answer and then wrote to him to suggest we are now on different paths and I think it’s best if we end our friendship and go our separate way.
I also suggested he gave up the booze and drugs (usually the instigator for much of his unskillful behaviour).
I wished him and his family well.
Thanks for your input! Appreciated as always.
“Many deities and men, yearning after good, have pondered on blessings. Pray, tell me the greatest blessing!
Not to associate with the foolish, but to associate with the wise, and to honour those worthy of honour- this is the greatest blessing”
Maha-Mangala Sutta
Plus you wished him and his family well. Having your family be well is also a greatest blessing from the same sutta.
This is true @David
"To support mother and father, to cherish wife and children, and to be engaged in peaceful occupation — this is the greatest blessing."
Bravo Bunks
Perfect, ideal, platitudinous dharma and real world living ... where do they meet?
Well ... I like moths but a small, gold, probably pregnant, moth was in our cereal cupboard. If I was a wondrous mother protecting bodhisattva I would have caught it and set it free to be eaten by our hungry garden spiders ...
I have limited possibilities/patience sometimes ...
Result = dead moth 😱😪
Plenty more fish in the sea - yum ... sorry spiders
@lobster I never had you down as a serial cereal moth killer...we live and learn