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About Anandapanyo Bhikkhu
Expertise
I can answer questions about Buddhist practice, Buddhist understanding and how to apply Buddhism to daily life. I can help analyze Buddhist sayings and teachings. In addition, I can help with questions Buddhism stories, fables and Vinaya(rules). I have meditated for over 10 years and can help you start with meditation. In addition, I can help provide insight into what to do when you feel that you have hit a wall with your meditation. My main area of expertise is how to think in accordance with Sammaditthi (the right view - and number 1 in the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path. If I cannot answer your question, I have many able teachers with over 20 years experience to help me, so chances are I will be able to find an answer for you.

Experience
I have been practicing Buddhism for over 13 years. I started studying under various famous Thai Theravada masters. Finally, I met and studied under Phra Acariya Thoon Khippapanyo who has recently passed away on Nov 11, 2008 and is widely accepted as a great Arahant (fully enlightened) teacher of our time. In addition, I have personally read and studied much of the Buddhist scriptures and popular literature available. I have recently undertaken the ordination vows and have become a Buddhist monk in the theravada forest monk tradition. I reside at a temple with many dedicated practitioners and great teachers. I have been practicing training my mind to be aligned with right view (sammaditthi) for over 10 years. I have also been meditating for over 10 years. In my time spent with Acariya Thoon, I learned many things and was able to incorporate them into my life. In addition to practicing Buddhism within temples and my home, I used to own two restaurants and managed commercial real estate. I had to deal with many different and problems. I learned how to use Buddhism to fix my problems, both externally (my environment) and internally (within me).

Organizations
Wat San Fran Dhammaram Temple KPY - a non-profit religious organization

Publications
none

Education/Credentials
Electrical Engineering Degree from the University of California Santa Barbara MBA from San Francisco State

Awards and Honors
none

You are here: Experts > Homework Help > Buddhism > Buddhists > Dealing with hurt to reconnect with an estranged friend

Buddhists - Dealing with hurt to reconnect with an estranged friend

Expert: Anandapanyo Bhikkhu - 10/27/2009

Question
About 8 months ago my close friend of more than 10 years walked away from our friendship after a situation that occurred between me and her ex-boyfriend. I had encountered him during a social work gathering and had a 15 minute conversation during which I accepted his phone number after he said to call him sometime “if we ever go riding”. My intent was never to call him; I interpreted as a polite “let’s do lunch” type of request and I did not detect flirtatiousness on his part. In fact, I do not even really like this man and even if I did would not have crossed that line. I mentioned it to her the next day and she walked away and refused to talk about it or respond for months. Up until this point, our friendship had been trusting and non-judging. I approached her multiple times, apologizing for hurting her feelings, trying to make amends. She said it was my action of accepting his number that hurt and the intent was not important and said her feelings for me were dead. After much thought and pain and a trip to Mongolia, I finally let it go. I felt that my lesson was that we can’t force others to love us and that I am loveable. I don’t need to fight for love, only be open to it. This week she approached me and said she wants me in her life as a friend again. She wants to talk this week. I’m struggling with how to deal with this. I know my hurt is ego based. I know my fear of being weak if I accept her offer of friendship now is ego based. I am also unsure how to trust her again since she has shown me that she will walk away from our deep friendship for an incident that I and others considered not worthy of this level of response. I don’t know how to deal with this.

Answer
Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for your question and allowing me the opportunity to answer it. I hope that together we can develop a level of understanding that can assist in dealing with your situation.

There are many underlying issues in your situation. But before we get to those, I would like to present an observation. I apologize if I end up being too straightforward, but out of respect for you and your situation, I think it would be best if I do not sugar-coat this answer and tell you exactly what I think is the problem. This way, you can save yourself time in suffering and uncertainty. However, as such, this is an assumption on my part and therefore prone to misunderstandings. I apologize in advance.

We, as human beings, prefer to think of ourselves as fair, unbiased and just. However, this is not always the case. As human beings we are slaves to our own perceptions. Our perceptions are like the operating system or software than runs our computer. We are limited to what the operating system can do. If the software has a virus, we will push out a bad result. Just so, when our perceptions are wrong, suffering arises. Suffering can include anger, resentment, fear, nervousness, trepidation, annoyance, and distress. Depending on our perceptions, we generate thoughts and ideas. These thoughts and ideas lead us to commit to actions and/or speech. Therefore, if we want to judge if we are being just, fair and unbiased, all we have to do is trace our actions/speech back to our thoughts back to our perceptions.

The reason I bring this up is that by reading your situation, I noticed many descriptive words. Descriptive words are like statistics, by themselves they are neutral, but when added to a cause, they can be very influencing. For example, in your post, I noticed the words/phrases:

"Close Friend","15 minute conversation", "after he said to call him sometime “if we ever go riding”," "trusting and non-judging," amongst others.

What these descriptive words do is tell me that you feel strongly about this, but are also trying to convince yourself that your are right and are the victim.

The problem with this is not that you are wrong, but you are feeding your ego. The reason you are hurt is ego-based, because you convinced yourself that your ego was being unfairly attacked. The reason you have fear of being weak is because you convinced yourself you will be hurt again if you accept her offer of friendship. When you feed your ego with descriptive words, you tend to miss the key concepts and convince yourself according to what you feel you need to hear.

The first thing you need to do is understand the situation. Plain and simply, you took his phone number. Whether or not this is right or wrong is merely a judgment call. Your friend did not want to admit things were wrong with her relationship due to her own actions, so she chose to blame the nearest person. But, at the same time, you don't want to admit you did anything wrong to ruin your relationship with your friend, so you decided to blame the nearest person, your friend. Do you see that you have done the exact thing you blame your friend for doing? She blames your for your decision in that action, you blame her for her decision in that action. You relied on the thought "that I and others considered not worthy of this level of response." However, in all fairness, if your friend (ex-friend) asked her "others" I am pretty sure they would say she was justified in being angry with you.

In order to figure out fairness, you cannot ask people around you. Of course they will say what you want to hear. To figure out fairness, you must weigh the pros and cons yourself and come up with an answer that neither leans toward you or others.

The second thing you need to see is that your friend chose to not trust you based on an incident that occurred, disregarding your long friendship. She chose to see the action as bigger than the friendship.

However, look at what you are doing. You are choosing not to trust your friend based on an incident that occurred. You are considering disregarding your long friendship. You are choosing to see that action as bigger than the friendship.

I am not making any judgment calls on who is right or who is wrong. Neither am I saying whether you or your friend is justified in your actions.

The Buddha taught that all things are impermanent and not prone to staying the same. Unfortunately this also includes long friendships. You are sad because inside, you expected that this friendship should last forever. However, this is contrary to what we know to be true.

On a side note, we should consider WHY you told your friend about receiving the number. Is it possible that if you didn't tell her, you were afraid that she would find out eventually? If she found out eventually, would she be more mad? Do you think you told her the truth just to be honest? Or was it deep inside you, you actually were afraid that she would find out? If this is true, this means you felt some guilt. And what does feeling guilt mean?

Now, what I would recommend depends on two things:

1. If you can see that you are doing the same thing as your friend, all you would have to do is forgive yourself for your mistake and THEN forgive her for the SAME mistake YOU made. Then you will be able to build a new friendship (not continuing the old - since that friendship has ended). Focus on new experiences, focus on the future, not the past. You can use this mistake as an example to look within yourself for problems so that you can build and become a stronger and better person for it.

2. If you don't agree that you are doing the same things as your friend, I would recommend this. You need to decide if you want this person as a friend. What will happen if you spurn her request. Will this make you feel better? If you accept her request, will you feel better? Then you should decide which one would make YOU feel better since your HAPPINESS is the most important thing to you. If you decide to be friends, then you can be more careful in the future of things that she might be sensitive to.

I hope I have answered your question. I apologize if anything I said offended you. I hope you are able to reach a fair and happy conclusion to your situation. I wish you all the happiness your decisions can provide. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to ask.

Sincerely,
Phra Anandapanyo

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