Being misunderstood

One of the worst things about being misunderstood is that very often the more you try to be understood, the worse the problem grows.

Most societies have strong proscriptions against too much talking, and Buddhism is no exception.

I want to discuss three people to whom I have tried to explain FIML with little or no success—a close friend, a Buddhist nun, and a close relative.

The close friend, who was a very knowledgeable and conscientious Buddhist, was never able to hear what I was saying. He always seemed to think that I was making excuses for something I said or prying into his thoughts with the intention of tripping him up. At the time, this person was a very close friend to whom I spoke almost every day, often at great length. We could talk about everything else in the world—politics, Buddhism, atheism, history, people, whatever—but he could not…