My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for your email. I was happy to receive it and I’m very sorry it took so long to reply to you.

I checked and, if you can, put pictures of the four harmonious brothers—not just one, but more—in the house and in the rooms.

What came out as best for you is to pray to Medicine Buddha and recite Medicine Buddha’s mantra. That is basically for enlightenment, in order to free the numberless sentient beings as quickly as possible and bring them to enlightenment. That includes your family, however, the smallest reason is to be harmonious—that reason is like a tiny atom from the table or like one tiny atom from the mountain, like that. So, make strong prayers to Medicine Buddha.

Please think about what Kadampa Geshe Khamlungpa said:

By experiencing this small suffering now,
It finishes my past negative karma
And there will be happiness in the future.
Therefore, rejoice in this current suffering.

That means in the future your life will be like the sun shining. The sun is shining for everyone to enjoy—for the people in the world to enjoy, even for the insects to enjoy and for the plants and crops to grow.

This quotation means that your life goes to enlightenment by using the problems in the path to enlightenment, with bodhicitta and emptiness, especially with bodhicitta.

Also, please do tonglen practice and those things. If you don’t know how to do tonglen there are many explanations. For you it is very important to do the practice, to learn it.

This is what you have to remember, not just thinking you are receiving problems with no cause. You created negative karma in the past and treated others like that, so that’s why you are experiencing the result now.

It is said by the great bodhisattva Shantideva in A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Previously I must have caused similar harm
To other sentient beings.
Therefore, it is right for this harm to be returned
To me who is the cause of injury to others.
    [Ch. 6, v. 42]

So we have to know this; we have to live your life with this basic understanding. 

It is said by Kadampa Geshe Chekawa, in two advices or instructions which explain that it is so important to transform all our problems into the path to enlightenment:

Put all the blame to one—that means your self-cherishing thought.
Toward all beings, meditate on their kindness,

This means all sentient beings, who come in three types—friend, enemy and stranger. With others, meditate on their kindness. This means everyone, especially the enemy. If we don’t cherish the enemy and don’t practice patience with that person then we can’t achieve enlightenment. If we cherish them and practice patience, then we can achieve enlightenment because of that person. So you have to know that.

Shantideva also mentioned in A Guide to a Bodhisattva’s Way of Life:

Because my karma persuaded them, I received this harm from others.
Therefore, didn’t I make that person become lost in the hole of the hell realms?

That means the person is now in the human realm, but by harming us they create the causes to disappear from the human realm in their next life and to be reborn in the hell realms.

But it’s actually our own mistake, coming from the self-cherishing thought. Why is the person harming us now? It is because in the past, due to having treated that person badly, then as a result, the person now harms us.

So now you can see that [the problems] came from the self-cherishing thought, therefore this is not something get angry back at the person and harm them back. You need to use this to generate compassion, to help however you can or at least don’t harm them. Pray, dedicate your merits and recite OM MANI PADME HUM to help that person avoid being born in the lower realms and if born there, to help them, to liberate them, to help them in whatever way you can.

With your life experience you can relate to this. What your daughter is doing to you is helping you to develop compassion; it’s not so you create negative karma, even if she is harming you. In reality this is the cause to make you develop compassion all the time, so please help her, please do not harm her.

You need to think in this way and in reality it will bring incredible joy to your life and will open your mind toward Buddhadharma. You are unbelievably fortunate and it will bring incredible happiness. You can use any problem on the path to enlightenment, and that means you can achieve enlightenment quickly in order to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara sufferings and not only that, you can bring them to buddhahood as quickly as possible.

What makes your life most meaningful is meditation on the lamrim and living your life with bodhicitta motivation. This is the best.

With much love and prayers ...