Spending any significant time with my wife’s sister and family always drives home the point that the home life can turn so quickly into a tangled mass of suffering. The point of contention when we all get together has always been my nephews’ outrageously disrespectful behavior and is something that continues to stretch my limits of compassion and understanding and is something with which I grapple evey time I see them acting out towards myself ot their parents. This inevitably leads to an all out screaming match between my brother and sister and law and my wife and I consider us all lucky if we see each other before the next year is out.
The same knock down, drag out happened today but in a happy twist things have been mended to the point where we are all still together. And although I am grateful for it the problem of how to relate skillfully to such bad behavior remains. I guess my sense of urgency comes directly from my fear of contagion: I fear that if my nephews’ behavior isn’t checked my kids will begin to pick it up. And yet, there is more to it thenn that. When I see them defy, curse or hit their own mother I am filled with an anger and disgust that I don’t fully understand and it becomes hard for me to let go of that hatred even after the moment has passed. So, obviously, this is my work: to check bad behavior, to forgive it and not to allow my heart to harden.
Sabbe satta avera hontu!
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 
As time goes by you will figure it out–it is hard to change ANYONE else’s behaviors, regardless of how damaging the behavior is.
By: spikee21 on 07/17/2013
at 12:35 pm