I’m fairly new to Buddhism, but I’m trying to follow it as best I can. I have an upstairs neighbor who regularly has yelling matches and I find it enormously stressful and anxiety inducing. Feeling my feelings has only gotten me so that I understand the anxiety better, but has not removed it. How do you handle things like this? Remove yourself from the situation? Sit with it? Address it somehow?
Posted Dec 27, 2018, 10:05 PM UTC
See the people that annoy you, that cannot be escaped, as teachers of patience. Appreciate your challenges and you will overcome them.
Thank you. I like that view of obstacles and its helped me at work.
Well, for me properly understanding the source of persons unwanted behavior helps a lot in removing my annoyance or anger towards them.
Thank you. I don’t think I can really understand, but it makes sense to foster compassion. I will try to do that.
Anger is caused by dissonance between our expectations and reality.
You are stressed and anxious and angry at your neighbors because they shouldn’t be that loud. They shouldn’t be disturbing you. They should have the social tact to keep quiet. But they don’t. Because they don’t care about you. And that makes you angry because your expectation is out of sync with reality.
So, two things:
First, consider every possible way to change the situation. Adjust reality to your expectation. Can you call your landlord and tell them what’s happening? Can you confront them and tell them to be quiet? Can you further soundproof your own place to drown out the offensive noise? What can YOU do that is in YOUR control?
Second, consider your attachments. Adjust your expectations to reality. You expect quiet, you expect peaceful silence. If you can’t attain that, accept that you can’t attain that. Accept that your current situation is suffering. Breathe in that suffering. Accept the truth of that suffering. Know that there is nothing you can do to change that reality, and so adjust. If you cannot expect quiet in your apartment, than except that and change your reality. Move apartments. “But I don’t want to.” Of course you don’t. But you also don’t want noise, so which suffering is more tolerable? Which suffering is easier to remove?
This world and everything in it is a delusion. Meaningless. Purposeless. Turn your eyes toward the dharma, be as the Lilly, and move above.
Interesting! This was part of the question I hadn’t thought to ask, but that I was quite curious about. Is it ‘cheating’ to change my circumstances and move away from the thing that causes me suffering instead of working through it? To what extent are we expected to put ourselves in the way of suffering in order to practice unattachment? Thank you, I very much appreciate your thoughts.
Well, my teachings have led me to the idea that nothing is permanent. That things that are stressful can be used as a means of improvement. Working through times of stress can make you a better Buddhist. One example is this... When they have a yelling match next, start meditating. Focus on your stress in such a way that you feel your feelings. Counting your exhales in cycles of tens feel your breath. With your anxiety building up in you focus more on your breaths. This is NOT without challenge. Your anxiety WILL challenge you in this. But if you can sit in it and feel it and remind yourself of the impermanence of everything and allow your focus to shift to your breath you will be able to do it easier later :)
great advice! I'd add to this by saying to OP that most of us have conditioned ourselves to respond to events in a certain way, so anxiety over these things will not go away over night, but it will soften more and more if you continually use those situations to practice as boyo1991 said.
Thank you. Practice, practice! I will do my best to sit without judgment.