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Story: Gautam Buddha, Disciple and Relatives (Source: Google Baba)
Buddha explains why he will not abuse back his abuser Once, a Brahmana named Bharadvaja became a disciple of Buddha. He shaved off his hair, donned saffron clothes, became a monk and left his home to follow Buddha. Some relatives of Bharadvaja became very angry with Buddha at this. They felt that Buddha had misled their relative and stolen him from his family. One of these relatives went to Buddha’s hut and started abusing him in anger. The Buddha did not respond. After some time, the relative became tired of abusing and became quiet.
Buddha asked him, “When a guest comes to your home, do you show hospitality towards him or not? Do you offer him water, food, a seat etc. or not?” The relative retorted, “What a foolish question to ask. Of course, I welcome the guest with all these things.” Buddha asked him, “Suppose the guest does not accept your water, food, seat and other things, then where will these items go?” The relative replied irritatingly, “Of course, they will stay with me. Can water, food and seat walk on their own to another place?” Buddha smiled and said, “Exactly! Likewise, I do not accept your gift of abuse. So where will they go now?” The relative felt ashamed that he had lost his temper and abused a monk. He asked Buddha for forgiveness and left, reconciled to the fact that his relative Bharadvaja had indeed become the follower of a great saint.
Moral of the Story:
- Non-retaliation: Anger begets anger. By not responding with anger, the Buddha shows the power of breaking the cycle of negativity.
Composure: Even in the face of provocation, remaining calm and composed can disarm the situation and lead to a more positive outcome.- Responsibility for your actions: Just like the unwanted gifts the relative offered, we are responsible for our words and actions, even if they are not accepted.
- Understanding: The Buddha doesn’t condemn the relative’s anger, but instead tries to help him understand the futility of it. This highlights the importance of empathy and understanding.
- Inner peace: By not accepting the abuse, the Buddha demonstrates how to maintain inner peace even in the face of negativity.
Meaning of Tolerance
Tolerance means understanding (wisdom), the ability to adapt as per the situation but often it is considered to be a negative word wherein it is assumed that if someone is tolerating, it means that person is weak and can not take action! Although the appropriate word for that situation (like child abuse)is suppression and not tolerance.
Example: In India, people have different food preferences in their state. Like in Punjab, people prefer spicy food while in Gujarat, people like to add sugar to lentils (Dal). If the people of Punjab eat Gujarati food, should they question how can anyone add sugar to the lentils or understand the customs of that state?
Understanding the other person’s perspective is not a weakness but a strength. When you are focused on your work and someone tries to do something to disturb you, you have two choices. The first one is to get disturbed and allow the other person to feel successful. The second option is to continue to focus on your work and let the other feel that he failed. This is wisdom, this is understanding the situation, this is real tolerance.
Why it is Important to be Tolerant?
In a movie, there are many characters and each character has a defined role. It could be of a hero, heroin, villain, comedian, friend etc. They have designated dialogues in which they need to speak. As an audience, we may like some characters and a few we may dislike. Irrespective of how we feel, the character will behave and talk exactly in the same way, that the film director has planned.
Something similar happens in life too. We meet different people. They could be our parents, spouse, friends, neighbours colleagues or unknown. With the majority of them, we have a good understanding but there are a few with whom we could not gel, we feel that
- they are arrogant,
- they are rough,
- they are lethargic,
- they are boring,
- they are non-trustworthy and much more
We find it difficult to tolerate them. We try to convince them and tell them what is right, but sometimes we get irritated and angry. But inspite of our best efforts, we could manage to change only a few of them but others continue to behave in the same way. When people do not change as per our expectations, we feel
- suffocated
- depressed
- helpless
- vulnerable
This can happen with your spouse, children, close relatives, colleagues, boss and sometimes with your parents too! When something continues to happen for a long time,
we want to break that relationship,- we want to live separately,
- we want to change the job,
- we want to divide the kitchen/property and much more!
But is it a solution? Does it give us happiness, does it make us feel relieved, does it help us to enjoy life more? Maybe for a short timeframe, we may feel relaxed and comfortable but after some time, we may meet another set of people where we again find it difficult to gel!
How to always remain Tolerant?
When we start understanding the concept of tolerance, the first and foremost thing is to accept that people are different, they will behave differently, knowingly or unknowingly. We need to choose the power to decide how to respond to the other person’s behaviour.
Like sometimes we meet a mentally retarded person on the road, do we feel angry, do we react if that person speaks unparliamentary language, the answer is no as we do understand the psychology of the other person. Something similar needs to be practised for our spouse, children, colleagues, friends and neighbours too. The more we choose how to respond rather than react, the better will be our tolerance power.
We may fail in the beginning but the more we are aware of our thoughts, the better will be our response and our tolerance power will grow further. As our tolerance power grows, our relationship with ourselves and others will strengthen further. We will be respected more for our balanced approach and we will have more friends and well-wishers.
मगरुर दरखतों को आंधियां उड़ाके ले जाएंगी।
वही शाक बचेगी दोस्तों जो लचक जाएगी।।
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