About people who hate you? I am struggling to keep the love in my heart for my future sister in law while she despises me. I need some help! Peace and love
Well I dont know what Buddha said, but I think we can teach those who have hate in their hearts by showing love and compassion regardless. Good luck to you, I hope she changes her feelings towards you
Thank you. It is hard to keep the feeling of love in your heart when you know that your sister in law is talking negatively towards you. Please help me with words of wisdom! Peace and love
vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi hastini suni caiva sva-pake ca panditah sama-darsinah The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater. I hope this helps God is in all of us remember
Hatred is never conquered by hatred, only by love is hatred overcome. This is an ancient and eternal law. Dhammapada 1 And from the Dalai lama "Infinite altruism is the basis of peace and happiness. If you want altruism, you must control hate and you must practice patience. The main teachers of patience are our enemies."
'Never retaliate in kind. Hatred does not come to an end through hatred but can only cease through generosity.'
The solution is there in your signature. Conquer the angry man by love. In this case the woman. The buddha too was hated by some in his lifetime, who opposed him. His own father scolded him furiously when he returned to his fathers kingdom. But buddha was cool and composed, because he was in a state of non-attachment, and nothing could affect him. He was the master of himself. As the Dalai Lama himself stated, take this as a challenge and a spiritual exercise to increase your selfrestraint and proactivity. Challenges bring out the best within us, both materially or spiritually. So love challenges.
Think of the Noble Truth that suffering comes from attachment. Your sister-in-law is attaching herself to you by her hatred, hence she is suffering. Offer her pity and compassion. That said, while she's actually being nasty to you, just imagine a bubble of light (or diamond, or whatever) around you, and her criticism and nasty comments just slide off. As someone wise said (may've been the Buddha, I'm not sure): "If you try and give me a gift, but I do not accept it, who then does it belong to?"
It's not you she despises, or hates. It's her own feelings she hates. Because she has her own way of seeing things, tasting things, hearing things, smelling things, feeling things, and thinking things. If you do not do these things like her, she becomes angered, not at you, but at her own expectations of how things should be. If you do not act like her, speak like her, or think like her, again she becomes angered because you do not do these things. If she becomes angery at how she observes you doing, speaking or thinking, chances are great she becomes angry at how she observes others as well. It's unfortunate that there are those who become so angry because others do not behave according to their views and perceptions. These types of beings lack the understanding that you are not them, and they are not you, and as such hold entirely different views and ways of doing things according to their own perceptions of reality. Compassion comes when you realize they have a lot of dust in their eyes. If what they do bothers you, then you also are exhibiting ill-will at your own feelings over how you expect the other to be acting ... according to your views. There is no one doing anything to us ... we do it to ourselves ... either out of greed, passion, lust, or ill-will, hatred, anger, or delusion, ignorance, confusion. ... Your sister-in-law is attaching herself to you by her hatred, hence she is suffering. Offer her pity and compassion. The attachment is not theirs ... it is yours ... rather than offering pity, offer loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic-joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekkha). Offer these four and you will not experience any discomfort over what she or anyone else says or does regarding their ideas and expectations of how you should act, speak or think. After all ... you are you, not them ... and they are them, not you. Here's what Buddha said: Pain, sorrow, lamentation, grief and despair is suffering. Loving the unloved is suffering. Losing the loved is suffering. Not getting what one wants is suffering. In short, the five aggretates of clinging (attachment) are suffering (the first noble truth: forms, feelings, perceptions, mental ideas, consciousness). Loving the unloved is craving and clinging to things that are impermanent, not capable of being loved because it is always fading the moment it arises. Losing the loved is losing the things you crave and cling to. Not getting what one wants is expectations ... Forms arise and fade. Feelings arise and fade. Perceptions arise and fade. Mental ideas (fabrications, actions, volition) arise and fade. Consciousness arises and fades. All these things are impermanent ... incapable of being loved, yet we crave them and cling to them moment-by-moment. Anyone who exhibits pleasant or painful feelings over what you do, say or think, does so because of their craving and clinging to forms, feelings, perceptions, ideas, and consciousness. Because this is all they know, they expect others to have the same craving and clinging to forms, feelings, perceptions, ideas and consciousness ... just like they do. Equanimity comes when you realize this is how others are, and have loving-kindness and compassion for them because they cannot see ... Sympathetic-joy for the knowledge that they will one day be free of these ideas and views ... The result will be your own peace-of-mind. Don't work at having peace-of-mind, rather work at expressing Loving-kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic-joy and Equanimity ... the result ... is ... peace-of-mind. HTML:
Do not be attached to praise or criticism. One cannot help help getting both in this life, and some of each for anything one does. Doesn't matter who critices you, or praises you. Just carry on as you know best.
