I've been practicing meditation for a few months.
I feel much calmer, compassionate and thoughtful, but I feel alienated by my family as they think I'm putting on an act.
Any advice?
Well, what do you think?
I can only speak from personal experience.
I don't feel alienated from my family really.
Have you tried talking to them?
Yeah, I mean, acting normal helps.
You don't have to act differently as a Buddhist or a meditator.
Be happy, I think, is the best thing.
People want you to be happy.
If you're happy, they've got nothing they can say.
But if you're calm and quiet, right, it's too conspicuous.
So be happy.
Laugh a little bit.
Smile.
Smile a lot.
When someone says something nice, smile.
I think that's what you learn, is you learn that people expect these cues.
And you don't have to stop giving those cues.
And in fact, the point is that you have a responsibility or a duty to provide those cues.
Someone says something funny, expecting you to react, you have a responsibility to smile or something.
Unless they're saying, I went and beat somebody up.
Isn't that funny?
And that's a case where you purposefully create conflict.
in order to show something, or you might purposefully create conflict.
But otherwise, you want to react appropriately.
You don't want to actually react to it and find it funny, for example, when they tell a funny joke.
But you want to smile and appreciate.
Not exactly even appreciate, but extend your love to them, which is a part of our reactions, our friendliness.
I mean, we expect this from each other.
Monkeys expect this from each other.
And they interpret the facial expressions.
We interpret facial expressions habitually.
So when you're not giving them, yeah, it's going to create conflict.
The question is, why are you creating conflict?
Do you want to create that conflict?
In certain cases, you might.
I mean, I try to create that conflict with my students sometimes.
When students are getting boisterous and talking and chatting and so on, I might come in and look very serious.
And if students are very upset, you want to seem very buoyant and hopeful.
You want to give them hope and encouragement and say, oh, you're on the right path.
Good for you.
You want to sometimes create conflict.
But in regards to your family, who is antagonistic, no.
For sure, the best thing you can do is to, it might seem like you're almost pretending
but you're not you're and you'll get that eventually it'll come to you one way or the other because right now you're creating conflict and that's that's a cause for stress and eventually you'll work that out so what long-term meditators find is they learn how to give the cues without actually interrupted interrupting their meditation so they're able to have conversations with people and not be emotionally affected not think oh I've got to get out of here these people are boring the hell out of me
No, they'll be like, this is suffering, and well, but everything's suffering.
So they'll be happy, and they'll think of it as a meditation.
This conversation is a meditation for them.
OK, another question.
Sorry.
I just wonder if Owen has any thoughts on how to deal with family.
my family pretty good about everything so I haven't met any obstructions just questioning and why and stuff like that and then confusion on traditions because everyone when you say about being a Buddhist they go what does the Dalai Lama think about this and that and I'm like well
I don't really pay much attention to the Dalai Lama, and then I explain that there are different teachings, and I don't follow that kind of teaching.
But like I say, a lot of the interaction I have with family is curiosity, questioning, and on my part is education.
And from time to time I do read different discourses and dharma, and I do read to different family members and friends who are interested on different topics and find that very interesting.
But yeah, on the whole it's all pretty good.
What would you recommend to someone who doesn't have that positive interaction?
who in this case has some sort of stress and conflict?
I think it would be depending on what you're promoting outwards.
If you're not kind of explaining your actions, if you're not taking part in
in big family events or you're not sitting around watching a family movie together anymore, things like that.
You know, it depends if you're, I would say, if you're following precepts, if you're sticking to the five precepts and you're trying to stay away from certain aspects.
I would say in a family situation that could be, you know,
interesting as such that one minute you were doing it all the time and now you're not doing it at all.
So why have you stopped doing that?
I think that's mostly where some of the problems occur when you go from living your life in one way and then you kind of flick a switch and you're no longer participating as much as you were
I think everyone's different in every situation.
Yeah, I don't think it's wrong necessarily that you're creating this conflict, but you have to understand what you're doing when you create the conflict because it's leading you somewhere.
It's leading you away from your family.
Is your intention to become a monk and go and live in the forest?
Well, that's probably where you're heading with this sort of behavior or it's the direction that you're heading.
And that would be the appropriate move to make based on if you choose to act in this way.
Because once you're a monk living off in the forest, then, yeah, you really can get away with acting in that way, acting aloof, acting reserved.
And if your family doesn't like it, well, it's really no skin off your back because you're a monk living off the forest.
But if your decision is to remain, or if your situation is such that you have to stay with your parents, then it's not really to any point to create this stress.
I mean, unless you
It's functionally wrong.
It's not like you have bad intentions toward them, but you're creating stress based on the incongruity of it, and it's going to break things up.
It might encourage your family to meditate more, but it might cause them to turn away.
It can actually be too hard for them.
So the point is you have to... An arahant, for example, acts appropriately in every situation.
and understands clearly how to deal with individual people.
You can't deal with everyone the same.
So for some people, acting reserved and aloof is a bad thing.
If a person is already antagonistic, and suppose it's a family member who thinks you're being brainwashed, well, to act as though you're brainwashed is probably not going to endear you or your practice to them.
If on the other hand you're open and interactive with them, you might very well bring them around and be able to at least come to some sort of harmony, some level of harmony with them.
So yeah, what I would suggest is take each situation as distinct.
try to act appropriately.
If you want to create tension in certain situations in order to help people understand how their behaviors are causing problems for them and for other people, sometimes conflict can be useful.
But if the conflict is just creating more antagonism, then, yeah, it's probably not a skillful response to the situation.
And it's not something that an Arahant would do.
It's just a
meditative state.
Now, as you get more and more meditative, you're going to incline more and more towards the monastic life, so eventually it's going to get very, very difficult to live at home.
One example is this man who became an anagami, and so he had this sort of difficulty.
He didn't, he wasn't at all accustomed to
how to deal with people after becoming an anagami.
It wasn't that he was deluded or anything, but he didn't have a response or a means of interacting with people.
And he may not have had any desire to find the response to interact with them, because when he came home, he went to listen to the Buddha's teaching, became an anagami, came back home, and his wife was waiting for him at the door.
and he just walked right past her and without saying hello, without giving the usual embrace and sat down at the table to eat his dinner and he ate dinner in silence and then he went upstairs and he lay down on the floor to sleep wouldn't even get into bed with her and as a result she was totally overwhelmed and
distraught by this, unable to cope with this.
And he knew that this was no good.
He then realized, he said, if I don't tell her, she's probably going to go crazy or freak out or even kill herself or something.
Because he was really freaked out by this, which, understandably, when someone changes
so completely so drastically but it's a situation where he could get away with this because there wasn't she had no support but him so he could shock her in this way to bring her around maybe without even intending it but the situation allowed for it so that once she was freaked out he was able to
to pass the Dhamma along to her.
He then said, look, here's how it is.
I've listened to the Buddha's teaching and have now given up all attachment to sensual pleasures.
I'm happy to stay with you and I'll treat you as a brother, I'll treat you as a sister if you want.
And if you choose to
find another husband, I will certainly not object.
So he gave her complete freedom and used that to reassure her.
As a result, her response to this was to ask him whether women could also practice this teaching of the Buddha and realize it for themselves.
And he said, yeah, sure, anyone can.
Maybe he didn't say it like that, but he said, yes, anyone can.
And so she asked him if she could go to the monastery.
And he took her to see the Buddha, I think.
And I can't remember whether she became an arahant at first or she became a bhikkhuni, but she actually asked to ordain.
He didn't ordain.
He stayed at home and continued to live as a layperson.
And she ordained as a bhikkhuni, and either before or after that became an arahant.
And there's a sutta, the Tulavedana Sutta,
that's attributed to her and her conversation, later conversation with her husband.
Her name was Damadinna, no, was it?
Was it Damadinna?
I think it was.
And her husband was, yes, and her husband was Wisaka.
And so there's this conversation between the two of them.
So in certain cases the conflict can be useful.
But I'm assuming you're not an anagami and
You know, you might want to take it slowly and cautiously so that you don't create too much disruption because that can get in your way.
It can create resentment and negativity towards the Buddhist teaching, which is very harmful for people.
You don't want people to have a bad impression of meditation and meditators.
So, yeah, I mean, it's not your fault, but you might want to be a little bit skillful about it.
at least until you are able to find a lifestyle that allows you to be aloof and meditative without creating conflict.