(Half bell)
(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
I feel guilty towards my mother
because I've done certain things that caused her to suffer.
But if I try to do the things that don't make us suffer
I find the seeds of suffering being watered in me,
so I avoided doing them.
I tried to practise offering her loving kindness presence to compensate her
in another way so she does not blame me for it
but inside I still feel very guilty for not doing certain things for her.
I want to know how can I transform this feeling of guilt inside me.
You don't do certain things for her, what do you mean by that?
I did not cause her to live in a comfortable place,
and cause a lot of worry.
She wanted me to work very hard and earn a lot of money
and I am not doing all that,
so it caused her a lot of anxiety and worry
and I could not give her a lot of comfortable material life,
which I can if I work really hard and earn a lot of money.
But I am not doing all that.
So I use the time to practice and
offer her deep listening, loving kindness, true presence.
It helps because she is not very resentful towards me.
But I also feel guilty because I feel that I should do more for her.
Can you summarize?
Our friend is asking a question relating to her mother.
She has a feeling of guilt.
She sees that her mother suffers and is able to do something to help her mother
such as she listens compassionately.
But there are other things that her mother might like her to do
that she is hesitant to do or even chooses not to do
because they would entail her to suffer
for example to work harder and earn more money
in order to provide them more secure material environment for her mother.
Her mother has expressed this wish
but our friend has chosen instead to work less so she has more time to practise
and she sees that her mother does benefit from the quality of her presence
as a result to her practise.
But she feels guilty because she is asking herself
can I not do more, am I doing enough to help my mum.
We have the right view,
because there is a wrong view that leads to suffering.
And because we practise mindfulness,
that is why we have concentration and insight,
insight is the right view.
The right view is you don't need a lot of money in order to be happy.
You don't need a lot of fame or power to be happy.
And if you have that insight, the right view,
you don't run after money and fame and power anymore,
and you have more freedom and more time to live our life.
But our mother may not have that kind of insight - right view,
she wants more money.
She wants you to work harder and earn more money.
And that is because she now doesn't have right view yet.
And your practise is to help her to have right view
and if you are not fresh enough, how can you help her?
I don't think that if you work harder or if you offer her more money,
then you can remove your feeling of guilt. No.
Even if you do what she wants you to do, it would not remove the feeling of guilt
because she continues to suffer even with more money
and you suffer more also if you earn more money.
So the practise is how to help her to get the right view that you have.
And one can be happy without having a lot of money.
And that is why, loving speech and deep listening,
the Fourth of Mindfulness Training is very important.
If you have a lot of compassion in your heart,
if you know how to speak gently,
if you have a lot freshness and loving kindness in you,
then you should be able to transmit your right view to her.
You will transform her.
And when her view is right view,
she will not demand that you work harder and earn more money anymore
but your own presence, fresh and loving is enough to make her happy.
Many of us in the world suffer very much because we do not have the right view.
And the purpose of Buddhist practise is to get the right view.
When you have the right view, you have the right thinking,
right speech and right action that lead to happiness.
So your problem is to help your mother to give up her wrong view
and get the right view that you must be skillful enough in order to help her.
Skillful here means to be refresh, lovely, patient
and your presence can change her more than your arguments.
You cannot change - help people with our arguments, okay?
(Half bell)
(Bell)