Is your mother a Buddhist? If she is not you may want to
gradually try to promote Buddhist teachings to her. Of course you
yourself must be a good example. It is a great merit as well to be
able to give the gift of dharma to your parents, or to lead them to
Buddhism. It is saying in the sutras that even if you carry your
parents on your back for three thousands years (is it 3000 years or
what?) you will still be unable to repay the kindness. My dharma
teacher told me I had to lead my father to Buddhism in the
future... my mother was the one who led me to Buddhism but she was
unable to do the same to my father.
Giving dharma is much better... the Buddha left planet earth for 3
months to Trayatrimsha Heaven to teach the dharma to her mother as
well. His father also attained enlightenment and entered into
Nirvana. When your parents know the dharma, more people in your
family know the dharma, gradually your family will have the
Buddhist culture factor, and gradually your mother's behaviors will
improve as well.
In the meantime, you can practise extra mindfulness and metta
(loving kindness) practise. You can also reflect on the happy times
with your mother and know that whatever afflictive emotions that is
appearing now is merely a conditioning of her deep rooted ignorance
and afflictions, and she has no control over them. Know every such
occassion to be an opportunity to practise metta and patience. To
practise the Four Immeasurables. The Dalai Lama said, "We cannot
learn real patience and tolerance from a guru or a friend. They can
be practiced only when we come in contact with someone who creates
unpleasant experiences. According to Shantideva, enemies are really
good for us as we can learn a lot from them and build our inner
strength." But not only enemies, parents are also very good
opportunity to practise dharma. And this is universal, you are
definitely not alone, we get into these problems most often with
parents. We seldom get these problems with friends or
strangers.
Mindfulness is important, in fact mindfulness is the essential
practise of Buddhism. All practitioners should strive to maintain
mindfulness as far as their ability, and if they fail, they should
make a resolution to improve their mindfulness skills. Also,
without mindfulness, there can be little achievements/attainments
in Buddhism. Without mindfulness skill, the mind easily gets swayed
into thoughts and emotions by its environment and the people around
him.
Mindfulness is important because the moment you are mindful,
everything is just seen as it is without any mental interpretation
and judgement. Even anger and emotion is seen as it is, but the
mind is no longer stuck on the content and story. Mindfulness is
like a mirror that reflects everything, it rejects none, yet holds
onto none. A mirror does not discriminate what to reflect, whether
something/someone is good or bad.. so be the mirror-like awareness,
be mindful, see things as it is.
It is also good to contemplate emptiness:
http://www.lamayeshe.com/lamazopa/anger.shtml
Another thing that is very good is what Pabongka Rinpoche explains
in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: generally speaking one
doesn't get angry at the stick that the person used to beat you.
The stick itself is used by the person, so therefore there is no
point in getting angry at the stick. Similarly, the person's body,
speech and mind are completely used by the anger, by the delusion.
The person's body, speech and mind become like a slave, completely
used as a tool of the anger. The person themself has no freedom at
allno freedom at all. So therefore, since the person has no
freedom at all, they should become an object of our compassion. Not
only that, one must take responsibility to pacify that person's
anger. By whatever means you can find, help the person's mind,
pacify the anger; even if there is nothing you can do, pray to
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha to pacify the person's mind.
