Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 9/7/2010

Question
Hi,

I have 3 sisters 2 of which are twins.  I am the youngest of the 4 of us.  When we were younger the twins always stuck together and my oldest sister and I stuck together.  Now, here, in our older years we are still divided.  My oldest sister and I try to get along with both the twins but they are always pushing us away.  Here is my problem, the twins barrow money from my eldest sister, then talk bad about her behind her back, hang up the phone on her, and sometimes never pay her back.  They also have perpetuated this kind of activity to their children.  This really bothers me and I finely met my end point this week.  I wrote one of the twins a long letter about being gracious to those who help you especially family and asked that she not talk bad about our eldest sister anymore.  It takes a lot to get me upset but this had done it. I try to stay natural and not take sides where my sister are concerned...but I hit the end.  I have been meditating on this and have yet to come to answer to deal with my anger. As a Buddhists how do I address my sisters and my anger?  

Answer
Hello Doris -

Thank you for letting me answer your question.

I rejoice that you have been meditating to try to come up with an answer to your painful situation with your sisters. And I rejoice in the fact that you have tried for as long as possible to stay neutral in the conflict between you.

What I have learned in Buddhism and in life is that we cannot change other people,  no matter how hard we try or no matter how much we want to or think that they should change. When we realize that, we can immediately let go of some of our anger.

What I have learned in Buddhism is the only thing we have control over changing is our own mind.

Through working with our own mind by meditating as you are, we can improve our wisdom. In meditation we can examine the situation that bothers us and try to come up with ways that might be beneficial to that situation. For example we can think of ways to broach the subject as you have done that will benefit all involved.

Then we also use our wisdom to realize that we are not in charge of the situation and therefore cannot predict or expect any kind of outcome from our actions. All we can do, which you seem to be doing is have the proper motivation for our actions and as much wisdom in which actions we choose in any situation as to do what we feel is the most good in that situation.

Also through working with our own mind, we can develop compassion.  We can realize that our sisters or anyone else for that matter, if they are doing things like pushing you away and borrowing without giving back are suffering in their own way.

What I have learned from Buddhism is that people want to be happy.  They don't want to suffer.  When they do a negative action that causes suffering to others, the person doing it is also suffering either consciously or subconsciously.  

What I have learned is that people who are doing negative actions are caught up in their delusions - they are under the delusion that they are the most important person and what they want or what they need at a given moment is more important than what someone else needs and so they are causing suffering to themselves and others. Their ego is in charge, not their Buddha nature.

And when we realize that the other person is under control of their delusion of greed or feeling they are more important than someone else, we can develop compassion for them.

So then we can put both wisdom and compassion to work in situations like this and explain that we sympathize with their wants and wishes and understand how important their actions are to them, and how we want everyone to be happy, we can try to see things from their side. Once we do that and get them to explain why they do what they do, with wisdom we can explain with calmness how their actions are not creating harmony.

All we can do is try to explain to them how we are feeling, with the best of intentions.  We can be honest with as much compassion as we can bring to the situation and as much wisdom as we can to not succumb to our own delusions of anger and frustration.

We can be grateful for them too as they are our greatest teachers.  They are helping us deal with our own negative minds like anger.  They are allowing us to practice patience and develop compassion and wisdom.

And we should not have any expectations of any particular result from our actions.  We cannot control others as I said.  All we can do is control our own mind.

We can through meditation watch our emotions. We realize that anger is a negative mind (or negative emotion) and through anger we can cause suffering to others and ourselves.  And our anger creates negative karma which we will have to experience as it comes back to us later.  So, our wisdom teaches us that we need to work on our meditation skills to recognize when anger is arising, by learning what it feels like as it arises and what kinds of things trigger our anger and work hard at finding ways for our anger not to arise.

The way that has worked for me is through meditation; especially mindfulness meditation.  When we do a mindfulness meditation such as following our breath, singlepointedly, we can begin to recognize thoughts as they arise, as we watch our breath.  We can recognize when a positive thought is arising and we can recognize when a negative thought is arising. As we begin to recognize when emotions form and arise,we can begin to decide whether or not to allow the thought to fully form. Once we begin to recognize a negative emotion like anger arise, we can simply decide not to allow it to form. As it arises, we can simply let it go like a cloud disappearing back into a clear blue sky.  The more we practice this, the more we can remain calm in all situations. We will be the master of our anger instead of being controlled by it as we usually are.

I hope this answer helps in some way and begins to answer your question.  If you have any further thoughts or follow up questions, don't hesitate to let me know.

I wish you much success and peace with your issues with your sisters and hope they resolve very soon.

Namaste - Laurie