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Is there a time to wash your hands of someone?
JohnCobb
Hot Springs Arkansas Explorer
I understand the idea of oneness and how we are connected to everyone and everything and we are to have compassion towards all beings. However, is there ever a time when it is okay to say I cannot have you around me and cannot have anything to do with you?
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Comments
Yes.
Increasingly it is necessary to do that with others and our selves. Increasing our interaction with the helpful, skilful and genuinely friendly.
I only spend time with Buds, Buddhas and my best intentions. It is a better way than following the trivia, destructive hell dwellers, hungry ghosts and facile 'influencers' and useless celebrities …
If involved with unskilful people we will be caught and influenced by their reinforcements.
You know that.
Yep, there is definitely a time to move on.
As the saying goes “you can love the tiger, but from a distance”.
We can still have compassion for people but never see them again if they are unhealthy for us.
When a relationship is resulting in more greed, anger & delusion than compassion, love & wisdom, then some distancing between the parties is advisable until the causes of that suffering within that relationship can be better addressed.
If and when those causes between the parties can be better addressed then consider doing so. If and when those causes can not be better addressed then just continue with the distancing.
In this way, the distancing only needs to be a rejection of the unresolved causes of suffering between the parties rather than a rejecting of the parties themselves.
Yes, sometimes we do have to. When other people are detrimental to our happiness, it is some times best to make an end to the relationship. I had a friend who would phone me up at strange times of day and night, and would spend hours on the phone crying and complaining. Her behaviour got so bad we in the end mutually agreed not to have contact anymore.
When a person is consistently ignoring your boundaries, they don’t respect your feelings, they are focused on themselves. I love everyone as a fellow human being and I feel bad that some people might only have me to feel compassion for them but you have to protect your energy and your mental well-being and if they’re a threat to that then you have to distance yourself from them
It appears the answer is unanimous. For context, I'm going to share more than the sentence in question (though it'll be italicized), but this came to mind from a recent letter I wrote. I should mention that the person I was writing to is Christian rather than Buddhist so I framed the sentiment in Christian symbolism.
My lifelong search for my tribe has failed because I have been looking in the wrong teepees. I have been interpreting self through the lens of ego, burdened with the belief that I am less than I am, and thinking it is humility. True humility is knowing that although my worth is the same as all humanity, the gifts I bring to the family dinner are not. I have approached the world on my knees, not in humility, but as a beggar unaware that my alms bowl is made of the purest gold from Heaven’s forge.
Or perhaps a different way of expressing the same thing: There are some parts of the Middle East in which water is the same price as oil - they still don't mix.
This is very very bad karma for my sangha my teacher and myself but I am thinking of putting down my euthanasia. Ie murder. In tibetan Buddhism it is necessary to die naturally but here comes the kicker if I let them suffer I go to jail and get bad karma anyways. If pysch pills don’t work for my cat I am very tired of this behavior I have so much compassion but I will not be abused for what ever stressing her out that’s idiot compassion. She will not trap me in saving her life and my future. Healthy cats can be rehome day in a no kill shelter ect but her special diet special needs and now a behavioral problem is bad and won’t get rehomed. I don’t know what’s stressing her out but spending money on a psych problem at vet when I think it’s a uti ect and being very very low income is not cool or needed. I don’t want her to suffer I don’t wanna be abused. She’s peeing on me while I sleep. I don’t know if it’s ptsd as I rescued her as a kitten before I got the other cat she eat my clothes cloth and this is because of being weened to early. I have no choice but it’s gotta be done if nescarry . It’s life even lamas ie buddhist priest suffer emensly.
Also posted in @Kerome 's Compassion thread:
I spotted this, this morning which seemed appropriate also for something I am experiencing currently. It's nothing life-changing or major, but it came as a timely reminder to not seek without, but to look within.
Not so much "what the heck is wrong with some people?" but more of a note to self, "Why are you permitting this to unsettle your balance?"