Yogi: How do I work with reconnecting with my dad whom I have a difficult relationship with?
Sayadaw: Never fear – when you go back to your home country, all that stuff will come.
You can’t prevent it from happening because that’s the pattern the mind has fallen into in such relationships. But, what we can do is to become very skilful at watching the feelings/emotions, at watching the reactions the mind has when it interacts with those persons the same way you interact with your thoughts.
The exercise is the same – recognizing the feelings but not getting lost in the content of your conversation with the person.
You really need to understand the difference between the concepts the mind builds and the reality. We can hear a simple ‘Hello’ and give it many meanings in our mind – that’s the concept. But the reality is that we hear a ‘Hello’ and there are these feelings. We can just be with the feelings and not believe all the stories the mind presents to us in our thoughts.
We need to practice that and become very skilful at staying with the reality of what we feel and not get lost in the stories that the mind feeds us.