So, an example of family conflict would be addressing their use of bad language.
Should I have just ignored it, or was I right to show my disapproval?
No, that sounds very, very evangelical.
Is that the right word?
I don't want to say Christian.
Because it's not what I mean.
I really don't.
I really know, I really am personally aware that there are good Christians out there.
It's just a word that happens to roll off the tongue for bad things.
There are really good Christians, Catholics, Protestants, people out there, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses.
But there's something in there that's nothing to do with Christianity.
So what is it?
Is it evangelism or proselytism?
What's the word?
And zealous.
Zealous?
No?
Overzealous?
What do you call it when you try to impress your views on other people?
Anyone?
I think you're right.
Zealotry, I think you call it.
Zealotry.
I mean, first of all, there's no such thing as bad words.
They're just words.
There was a monk once who went around calling his friends wasala.
I think wasala was it?
Which is a word that means dog.
It doesn't mean dog, but it's equivalent to in English how these people call each other, hey dog.
Wasala, I believe it was the word was wasala, and it means like servant or...
Yeah, like a very low-class person.
But it was because he was just used to referring to people in that way.
And so they went to the Buddha and they said, look, this guy's calling us wasara.
This is really insulting.
And the Buddha said, well, that's just the way he, it's just wohara.
It's just the words that he uses.
So it's a pretty good example of overreacting because
Even if there was something good about disapproving of other people's behavior, I wouldn't say it's a good example of what should be disapproved of.
But as you'll probably learn the hard way, generally no good comes from disapproving at all anyway.
I've always felt I kind of have a duty to my parents to find some way to
uh... alert them to their deleterious behavior for their benefit but other members of the family have never felt that way towards i don't think it's it's held up by the buddha's teaching and i don't think it's really uh... logical to think that we have some kind of just because we were
born before the person, or because we have the same blood as the person, the same gene pool or whatever, that we have any reason to admonish them.
They're not our students.
They didn't ask for our teachings.
So even when they're doing bad deeds, it's not our... First of all, it's not our duty.
Second of all, it's not helpful.
the disapproval of other people's bad deeds, the open disapproval, is rarely, if ever, unless they're your students and they really, really trust you, it's rarely beneficial.
Even if they're your students, unless they are really, I would like to say advanced or special people, they tend to get very, very
lose faith very, very quickly when you start criticizing them.
So except in special cases, criticism is very dangerous.
So showing your disapproval, no, that's really, really a bad idea.
You have to show your happiness.
It's like the fight that you have to fight and that you have to win is who's happier.
Them who are engaged in all of their
pursuit of sensuality, or you who have given it up.
And if you're not happier, if they're the ones sitting around cussing and swearing and enjoying it, and you're all on their back about it, you're not winning, you're losing.
You're losing the happiness battle.
They're happier than you are.
Yeah, they are happy.
You're miserable.
That was the big problem for me is that I was miserable.
I knew I was doing the right thing, but I was like, this is like toughest nails.
It was the hardest thing that I'd ever done, of course.
And so that kind of clicked with me at one point, and I said, you know, I can't win this battle.
I can't prove to my family that what I'm doing is well.
I can't convince them that what I'm doing is right because I'm not happy.
I know that what I'm doing is right,
But, sorry, I wouldn't say miserable, but really struggling.
Because there's no question that I totally, the suffering that I had before
After practicing, after finding meditation and realizing the path, it was incredibly liberating.
The meditation is the way to go.
But it was still like, this is not easy for me.
I have all these conflicting desires and emotions that I really don't want and have to work to get rid of.
But I knew there was no question that this is the right path, of course.
until you get to the point where you're actually able to express it.
When you're fighting with these things, there's very little you can do to convince other people.
So if you've gained happiness in meditation, the only way to convince people that you have gained that, that meditation is the better way or your way is the better way, is to show them and to give them proof that it is the better way.
Because if your path leads you to be judgmental and disapproving, it's not really appealing, you know, is it?
It's not really how anyone else would ever wish to be.