Dealing With Difficult People

Dealing With Difficult People by Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

Somebody again this evening gave me a great suggestion for a talk, which is concerning how we put these teachings into practice in life. And it's the talk this evening is on how to deal with difficult people. I just feel that's relevant to your life. I don't know why there's so many difficult people in in the world, but I'm sure you've met many of them. And even today. And the reason I give talks like this is to show just how we can apply these great insights for meditation and Buddhism to help solve many of the problems in this world, because the whole point of Buddha's teachings is to lessen suffering, to give more freedom. As we go closer and closer and closer to the pure freedom and bliss and ease of enlightenment. And I know just this afternoon, giving a talk at Curtin University reminded us something I said even last Monday night, where some people have never heard of Buddhism before, were asking the old question, well, you know, is Buddhism a way of life or is it a religion? You should know the answer to that question. It is a religion for tax purposes. We have to be practical about these things. You just ask our treasurer. This also is a way of life. It's a way of dealing with the problems of life. It's many, many things. And I usually focus on the practical aspects of Buddhism in this Friday night talks and today, how to deal with the difficult people who you see from time to time in your life when you meet with them. And don't think that just because I'm a monk and you live in nice monasteries, you don't have your share of difficult people because I don't know what it is like that sometimes as a monk, you attract difficult people. I'm not saying that you're difficult because people have got nowhere else to go. And sometimes the monks kindness and compassion means that, you know, you accept everybody. But first of all, how you deal with difficult people to know that difficult people are par for the course. And so when we understand that, we understand it's not unusual to have difficult people. No matter what you do and where you go and how you behave, you're always going to meet them. So first of all, there's nothing wrong with having difficult people. In fact, we can look upon difficult people. As my teacher Ajahn Chah says, there's great blessings to our life. They teach us patience. They teach us compassion. They actually lead to so much wisdom. Really? You don't learn so much from the nice guys and the nice girls of life, do you? You have a good time with them. But where you really learn your lessons. Is with a difficult ones. Which is why that I learned from my teacher in Thailand. You know Ajahn Chah. You know Ajahn means teacher. And he said anything which is irritating you. Anything which is troubling you. That is your teacher. So being in northeast Thailand, we'd always called the mosquitos Arjan Mosquito because I learned so much for those damn mosquitoes. Oh, that's what I thought at the time. Those mosquitoes is even when we used to do loving kindness. For those of you who are Buddhist, you know that we spread loving kindness to all people, all beings, all genders, no matter what you are and who you are. May all beings be happy and well. However, as a young man, being a monk in Thailand, I just could not do that is impossible. So I did the best I can. I used to chant, May all beings be happy and well except mosquitoes. May all beings be free from suffering. But not those mosquitoes don't deserve it. What they've done to me. And they were. I'm sure that if ever you spread loving kindness, you have also got exceptions. But it didn't work well when I had exceptions. So I learnt how to learn from those mosquitoes, to be kind to them. Sometimes I was so kind to those mosquitoes. I let them bite me. They would land on my my hand. So come on, mosquito, you could bite me. The door of my hearts open to us. I need a little bit of blood. I know that you need this to have your dinner. And I like my dinner as well. Especially as a monk. That is your dinner. So have something to eat now with those mosquitoes did sometimes difficult people and difficult beings are like this. They take advantage of you. They put their nose into the skin. You know? It's irritating. So you just endure that. But it's only a few seconds. But these mosquitoes, that was just an exploratory drill. They took their nose out, walked a few steps and tried somewhere else. They were fussy and you'd have 3 or 4 bites from one mosquito. They were taking advantage of my kindness. Whatever. That's just the nature of mosquitoes. And it doesn't matter how. Plenty of blood. And I learnt a lot from that. So number one, first of all, know that the difficult people and difficult beings and difficult situations in life that's common, there's nothing wrong. You never find any place where you can run away and hide and escape from difficult people, or difficult mosquitoes or difficult experiences. So number one, you have to accept them. And you have to learn how to deal with them. One is learn that they're part of life and you can learn so much from them. Number two is to realize that really, most of the difficulty of difficult people is actually coming from you. The way we react to them. I know somebody once said, if ever you see a difficult person, remember you only have to endure them for for maybe a few minutes, a few hours at most. Even if you live with them, it's your husband or your wife. Don't know why you chose that person anyway, that's your karma. But every way, once you. Know, even if they're that close to you, I only have to live with them for a short period of time. But they have to live with themselves all day. And sometimes when you think that how irritating they are for you, they'll be equally irritating towards themselves. And those poor people have to live with that mind 24 hours a day. It's a wonderful reflection when you see difficult people. You know that if they are that difficult for you to live with, they're also difficult to live with themselves. And that gives you so much compassion. So it takes away the hurt which you feel, and you notice the hurt that they feel that they're so difficult to you. So this is actually empathizing with the other person taking the pain away from yourself. Why do I have to deal with this person and get an idea what they are going through in their head, in their mind, in their in their life? And some of these people, if they're that difficult to you and you're an ordinary person, imagine they've probably got no friends, no one they can really relate to because they're just such an incredibly difficult character to live with, is so lonely. So that actually arouses a bit of compassion to such people. When you have compassion to such people. Your endurance levels go up enormously. You can actually bear, you know, with dealing with such difficult people because you know, they're not going to be around for long. They're going to walk out of your office or you're going to go home to somebody else. And even if you can't escape from them, you can always come on a retreat in my monastery or in our monasteries or someplace in getaway. So that's one thing you can do. But it's also to know that the difficult people in life, you can actually change them. It's a wonderful thing to know that difficulties which you face in life, or difficulties which they experience, they are impermanent and are always serves as a phase which people go in their life being difficult. Of course, that phase might last from birth until death, but it ends eventually. It's not forever, but it's nice to know you can actually change people. You can actually see them grow. And how you change people is a wonderful psychology, which I've learnt as a teacher, how you can interact with people and take the cause of their being difficult to themselves and others and actually just move that nudge that in the sense of learning to be more kind, more sensitive, less demanding, and less of a pain to live with. It's wonderful you can do that. And how is that done? I was mentioning in a talk this afternoon at Curtin University. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, but this was a powerful little, um, uh. Experience, which I had about a month ago, maybe even longer, six weeks ago in Singapore. I was invited to give a talk at a conference at the Institute of Mental Health. It was one big anniversary of the hospital, so they invited me over with all these other psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and professors as a monk to give a talk on how to deal with mental health. And what I was talking about. There was the things which you've heard here before, but what I was really impressed with was afterwards there was a devout Christian who was head of one of the wards departmental head, and he invited me to his ward to do some Buddhist chanting, and I was in it. He told me actually not to tell anybody. Now I've blown it. And I said, why did you say they said, because what you said just makes so much sense. And he said, I really respect that wisdom. And he said, what I respect most of all is you're telling us something which we've only recently been practicing. Where we don't focus on the times of the day, where our patients are sick and difficult, the times when they experience delusions of psychosis and are dysfunctional. It is put that aside. The times that they are apparently healthy without relating to themselves and their environment in a sensible way. Because when a person has a mental dysfunction, it's not 24 hours a day. They have periods, times when they're sort of in some sort of delusional state, and at times when they come out afterwards, and they said they were focusing on the times when they weren't delusional. And it said by focusing on the times when they were healthy, they said a healing was happening. The times when they were healthy were extending, and the times when they were dysfunctional were decreasing. And I've been teaching that for years. It's wonderful to see that has got into a modern health system in the only sort of mental hospital which they have in that city state. And I know that's the same with difficult people. If you focus on their difficulties and make a big deal about that, you're actually encouraging those difficulties. You're feeding them, and eventually they will get worse and worse and worse. There's a classic story, and I've used this so many times. If you haven't heard us before, it's a very good one to hear if you have heard it before. You're learning how to be patient with a difficult monk who keeps on repeating the stories. Either way, it works. And that's that great story of the the demon who came into the Emperor's palace, demon coming into an emperor's palace and emperor was away. And because he was away, there was a monster. A big, ugly, terrifying demon came and strolled right in to the palace. He was so frightening, so terrifying. Everybody froze in horror. And this ugly, disgusting, slimy demon. Allowing the demon to go right through into the heart of the palace and sit on the emperor's throne, and as soon as he sat on the emperor's throne, that was just too much for the guards and the ministers. They came to their senses and they said, get out of here. Who do you think you are? This is our Emperor's seat, not yours. Get out! Or else. And at those harsh words, the demon grew an inch bigger, more ugly, more smelly. And the language got far worse. And that made us soldiers and ministers even more upset. They got out their swords, they got out clubs. They clenched their fists but had every unkind word, every angry deed, even every unkind thoughts. The monster just grew an inch bigger, more ugly, more terrifying, more smelly. And a language from the monster called worse and worse and worse. And this has been going on for quite some time before the Emperor came back. And at this time that demon was so huge he took up half the throne room. He was massive. And talk about ugly and frightening. I've never seen alien movie, but people said the alien is pretty and terrifying. Now imagine the alien multiplied by a thousand. This was so terrifying. Not even I said Dreamworks could manufacture such a terrifying and horrible spectacle as this ugly demon. And according to the story, the smell, the stench coming off this demon's body would make maggots throw up. It takes a lot to make a maggot sick. And the language coming from this demon was worse. Was worse than you'd hear in Northbridge. Half of both the Eagles and the Dockers lose. So this was a problem, a real difficult being coming into the palace. But when the Emperor came back, the reason he was emperor, because he'd been to Nalanda and heard the talks and was wise. I always changed his stories every time, embellished to this way and that way. So you could always hear a new angle. So the Emperor, you know, had also, you know, Red opened the door of your heart, which is available at the bookshop for 25 days. I've also learnt marketing. I was sort of it's an entrepreneurship business conference this afternoon. But anyway. The Emperor said, welcome our monster. Thank you so much for coming to visit me. Why have you waited such a long time to come and pay me a call? And at those few kind words, I must have grown into smaller, less ugly, less smelly, less offensive. And all the people in the palace realized their mistake. Instead of saying, get out of here, you don't belong. What are you doing in here? You don't belong in here. They started to say welcome. And one of them said, actually, do you want something to drink? No. We've got some orange juice. Freshly squeezed. Squeezed, frozen. I don't know, who cares? Would you like something to eat? We got some nice, um, curry puffs. Are they available this evening? I don't know what it was. I didn't see whatsoever. They got some curry puffs. We got some sandwiches. Someone said we like a pizza coming out. Monster size, of course, from someone like you. Someone, somewhere gave the monster a foot massage. A foot massage? Imagine a monster with such big feet. It took about ten of them to give each feet a massage. If someone asked you when a cup of tea. We have English tea. We have peppermint is good for your health. Or a cup of coffee, latte, cappuccino or Brazilian? I don't really know what I'm talking about. With coffee, I'll just do whatever. I'll give it. So anyway, every kind word or kind deed or kind thought. The demon grunted. Smaller. Less likely, less offensive, less smelly. It wasn't such a long time, even before the monster pizza arrived. He was back down to the size when he first began, when he first came in, and they kept on laying on the kindness until that demon got so tiny. One more act of kindness. And that demon vanished completely away. And the Buddha told that story in the Udayana. But there was no mention of pizzas and peppermint tea. I made that up. But Buddha told that story in udon. He said, we call those things anger eating demons. When he gives them anger, they get bigger. Let's argue this offensive, less smelly. The language gets worse. He said the only way we can we can overcome the anger eating demons in life is with kindness. Welcome. Thank you for visiting me. Now, many of the difficult people you meet in life are anger eating demons. You give them anger and say, get out of here. You don't belong in here. It actually does get worse. So instead of saying, get out of here, you don't belong. Some of the difficult people you say, welcome. Thank you for coming to bother me. We don't actually say that. You say thank you for coming to visit me and give them kindness. Now, sometimes people say, well, that doesn't work. It might be okay for you as a monk. You know, maybe someone's got psychic powers. You can actually get into their head and their mind and sort of rearrange their neural pathways so they're not difficult with you. But no, it does work. One of the first time over 20 years ago, when I told this story, it was when I was teaching in prison incarnate prison farm, just down the road from our monastery. We still go there most Fridays. And when I was teaching there to kind of prison farm, one of the prisoners complained and he said, that is just like New Age rubbish. It doesn't work in the real world, especially in a prison. Prisons are tough places. If you get a difficult person, you've got to stand up for yourself. That's the only language they understand. And of course, I wasn't having any of that. I said, I don't believe you said you don't live in prison. I said, well, monastery, we have cells we have worn around. Actually, they don't have a wall around. They have a wall around our monastery. Actually, sometimes people in the early years, they'd actually drive all the way to kind of prison farm and ask, where are the monks? It was very embarrassing. Like, there weren't any monks in it. But anyway. Anyway, I challenged this guy. I said, okay, in this prison, who is the most difficult person you have to deal with? And the prisoner I challenged was with a number of other prisoners. He said the chief officer said the chief officer, he said, my job is to serve him tea and coffee every day. That's my job in prison. I hate that guy. He's always really nasty. And he told me a story which happened the week before. One of the prisoners incarnate. He had hardly ever had a visit from his family, because it's such a hard place to get to. There's no public transport, and if you're poor and haven't got a car, you just have to find a friend who can actually take you all that way. It's a difficult place to get to. And he said this man's wife had managed to get a lift to come and see him. But before you can go and see your relations in prison, you have to check in, say your name, go through all the security stuff. And the chief officer had seen this woman checking in and knew that she had come to see this prisoner and decided to be cruel to the prisoner on the PA system. He said, so-and-so know you got a job for you on the other side of Carney prison farm and sent him to a place where the PA system didn't reach this, a huge prison farm. He did on purpose, because as soon as his wife had checked in, the PA system announced, prisoner so-and-so, your wife is here. Please go to the visitors area. But he couldn't hear it from where he had been sent. The message was repeated 2 or 3 times. They went to a search to try and find him. They did find him by the time they found him and he came back. Visiting hours are over, but better luck next time. He said the Chief officer did this on purpose, with no reason other than spy, and trying to give the prisoners a harder time than they deserved. He said that's why in that time in prison, he was called a dog. And I said, you hate him? And said, yes, really? Big time. He was so difficult. He'd never respects us, never says anything to us. He always puts us down and treats us like dirt. He said, great. This is a challenge. You meet him every day serving tea and coffee. Be kind to him. Don't embrace him with your arms. You get in trouble that way. But at least you can embrace him with your heart. Is that how you can do that? Is every time you serve a cup of tea or coffee, try and put some love and care into that tea and coffee. Try and make it the most beautiful, delicious cup of coffee you possibly can can make. Find out what he likes. And be kind. Give it lots of love and compassion for yourself. And tea and coffee. So all credit to this prisoner. He tried it for a week. And when I came back after a one week. How's it going? Said, look, it's a complete waste of time. I'm really trying hard to be kind to this guy, but every time even I put lots of effort into making a nice cup of tea and coffee. He completely ignores me as if I don't exist, as if I'm lower than a cockroach. He even says to the cockroach, get out of here! But not me. So I told him, carry on. And it was about, I don't know how long, maybe a couple of months. I had to encourage him and force him to do this before we got what I call the big breakthrough, because one day I actually came to visit and he couldn't couldn't wait to tell me this. He said he'd made his prison officer a beautiful cup of coffee with cream or whatever he found, just as he thought the prison officer liked, and managed to find him some biscuits, which he'd noticed the prison officer liked and said, here you are, sir. Have this coffee. And I found some special biscuits, which I know you like. And a prison officer said, uh. He grunted. That was our breakthrough. It was the first time he acknowledged that this prisoner actually lived and existed and breathed. So that grunt, I said, wow, this is exciting. That is the crack in the dam wall. And I was right. It was only about 2 or 3 weeks later. Prisoner managed to find a special cup of tea, a sandwich or whatever. Hand it to this prison officer. The chief officer, who was a dog and the chief officer turned around and said, thank you. And all the other prisoners were telling me this, and they were all looking at me, and they said, you don't realize just how the prison grapevine works. That has gone to every prison in the state that this chief officer could say thank you to a prisoner was unbelievable. I won a challenge. I knew I'd win eventually. Even such a dog, you can change into a light, cuddly little puppy. With lots and lots and lots of kindness. You can turn difficult people around, but it just takes a lot and a lot of patience, a lot of kindness. Some of you will not be able to do that. It's too much for you. So you have to know your limitations. But it does work if you really push at it. The most difficult people can become the best of your friends, and sometimes it's a challenge which is worth facing in life. You have people in your office give them kindness, but when they give sort of unkindness back to you and difficulty to, you know, you'll imitate. If you have to run away, fine. If you have to sort of talk to them or point out what it feels like, there's that. Oh, what I talked about this afternoon in the conference. It's also just what I've talked about here, the old sandwich technique. If you do have to tell a person that, you know, you are being difficult to me, I've got my own space I need to protect. Whatever. You don't go blurting the negative stuff out straight away. That will never work. Whenever you're talking to someone, you want to bring up a difficult problem. In other words, to criticize them, to tell them they're making a problem for you. Sandwich technique 2 or 3 pieces of praise. First of all, now you're a really nice person. Just the way you work. You're so diligent, you just, you know, you're you're so well dressed or whatever, something which praises them. And then you tell them. You know, you tell them. You know, it's like you found something. You wanted to criticize me. You say? I mean, such a nice man, coming all the time and giving these talks in a very inspiring. And when you say things like that, I open up to you. Oh, wow. You like me? I'm listening to you. And then you say, but your jokes are sometimes a bit over the top. But I know, but you know that you do sort of look after the monasteries. Look after the Buddhist society prays afterwards. Now, if you actually sandwich your criticism between heaps and heaps of praise, people actually listen to it. So if you are dealing with a difficult person and you really need to tell them, they really need to listen to you to know exactly what they're doing and the problems they're causing. Please praise them. First of all, give them the right side because then they know they're not being attacked now pushes back at you. Isn't that what you need when you're being told off? Because you are difficult people as well sometimes, aren't you? It's always somebody else. But sometimes we create difficulties for others. So if I was going to tell you off, this is how I would do it. You know, I'd surprise you first of all. And I butter you up, make you know that I appreciate and value and care for you. Because if we just give criticism straight away what we feel is that person. Why are they my enemy? Why are they just saying this to me? Don't they realize how hard I work in their difficulties and the problems I have to face? When you get criticism straight away, you just get defensive. You justify yourself. You just don't listen to the other person. You don't take it on board. So by just getting that sort of acceptance, the very fact that, you know, you're accepted, you're appreciated, you're valued means you're opening up. Then you put the criticism in and you butter over afterwards. But, you know, I really like you. You're really valued. Thank you for being who you are. And then people actually can listen. You know, a lot of times people don't realize they're being difficult to you. It's weird, but they think they're being a friend. They think they're just being them, or they're being funny or they're being whatever. So sometimes we do need feedback to know exactly what we're doing and how we come across. I remember playing this game once with one of my fellow monks about 32 years ago. We just sat down and we wrote what we thought of each other, and then we passed it to each other, and it was amazing to Ta for me to listen to what another person thought of me. It wasn't what I thought you thought of me. And what I thought of him wasn't what he thought. I thought of him completely different. The way that we relate to each other. It's not actually the way that we are thought of. So sometimes people don't realize they're being difficult. So they do need some feedback, but it has to be done. On the on the sandwich technique at the right time and place. And then people will take it aboard and they can change. And how do they change? Make sure they're not put into situations where that difficulty arises from in the beginning. One of the reasons why people are difficult, why sometimes you are difficult because people are too stressed out. When you're stressed out of work, you take it back home. Give people a hard time at home. And then because your hard time at home, you have family problems. When you go back to work, you're stressed out at work even before you begin your day. You know the cycle of negativity and stress. So much so that we really should deal with that problem, whether at home or at work, to learn how to de-stress and to be able to de-stress. A little bit of meditation really works. You know the old story how heavy is the cup? The longer I hold it, the heavier it feels. So I keep holding this for five minutes. My arm aches. Ten minutes. I'm in great pain if I keep holding this for half an hour. I'm a very stupid Mac. So what should I do when it starts to get heavy? Put it down for five minutes. If you don't believe me, you can try this out at home. It works. After five minutes, you pick it up again. It's much lighter. It feels like it's exactly the same way. It feels lighter because you have rested. So your stress is nothing to do with how much work you have. The man of responsibilities and duties you are. That is not the cause of stress. The cause of stress is when it gets too heavy to pay. Don't know how to put it down. You're afraid of putting it down for a few minutes to rest. To get your energies and strength back up. And you will find, as any psychologist or monk would tell you, how should we teach the psychologists so they will get all their ideas from. We should paten them. But you know, we give things out for free. This is the work you have. You find if you put it down for 5 or 10 minutes, it is not 5 or 10 minutes wasted. It's actually an investment of time because when you're rested afterwards, the quality of your work improves enormously. You get more done in less time too. You become a more efficient. And sometimes at work we mistake the quantity of work for its quality and efficiency. Giving yourself a break. Ten minutes of meditation, rest or whatever. And I recommend. The toilet is a great place to meditate. You can put on engage, though no one will bother you and you can always say you're constipated and you're not lying because your brain was constipated. And then rest for a few minutes. When you come out afterwards, you make up that ten minutes you spent in the loo very quickly, so you get more work done more efficiently, higher quality, and you're not stressed out. So when you go home, you can enjoy the company of your relations and know your kids and your wife, your husband. You can actually relax and enjoy your dinner because when you enjoy the company of home again, its home is supposed to be a place where you de-stress. You can relax, have a good dinner, meet the people you love and care for. So when you have a nice rest in the evening, you go back to work in the morning and then you sort of come. It's a cycle which you can either have a vicious cycle of stress, an argument at home or stress at work, and you get really crazy. Or you can break that cycle, rest a little bit at work, you get more done, you come home, you relax. Everything is going well at home. So you're happy at work as well. You get more done there. That's a cycle when you don't become a difficult person to live with. That's why I say to people when they come on meditation retreat. So they do a meditation here on a Saturday afternoon or beforehand. Why do you meditate? Because other people have to put up with you. That's one of the great reasons to meditate. And if you meditate, you're a much nicer person afterwards. Many times when I've been teaching meditation, especially down at Armadale, I don't know why this happens. Always in Armadale. Group one Armadale group. Sometimes after the meditation, talking to people afterwards and very often people say, you know, this evening I never wanted to come, you know. So Tuesday evening I've been at work and I'm tired and I told my kids I'm not going this evening. And my daughter said, mummy, you must go to meditation. So I don't feel like it. Darling. I'm tired. Mummy, you must go to meditation. No, not this evening, mummy, go to meditation. Why, darling? Because you are much nicer, mummy, when you come back. And so they go. Many of the kids actually understand that. They can see the change in you bring your distress. So you're not such a difficult mother or a difficult a father to your own kids. So this is actually how you can see in practice, a little bit of rest makes people less difficult people to live with. So you're seeing the cause of these things. So it's not just being compassionate and kind. It's actually knowing the causes of being difficult and dealing with them now by giving yourself a bit of rest, being distressed, and one of the other things about being a difficult person, what it's like sometimes is so much stuff comes on top of you. You've got so many things to do. I've had an incredibly busy week. But when I give a busy week, I try really hard never to get negative. Sometimes saying, oh, why me? Why do I have to deal with all these crazy people? Why do I have to take all this course? Sometimes from overseas, people ring up. They're crazy. It's what I've called here. Dial up a monk service. Sometimes even people have lost their dog, you know, over in sort of Canada somewhere. And they say, can you do some chanting for me over the phone? Hahaha. I was saying today that I was in Japan of 3 or 4 weeks ago, and Japan is such a high tech country, and if we ever actually maybe do a fundraiser soon to buy a robot monk, you know, like a cyborg, you know, just can look like me or any other man can put a robe on it. And so they want any chanting you can just, you know, put a donation in a little slot in here, press the button and we can give you the blessing services for even on a Friday night, if I'm not feeling myself and just want a bit of a rest, I can put myself my cyborg up here. You put one of the old CDs in there of favorite talk, press the button and no one know the difference. It's an idea who's got some potential. But I will never do that because some sort of thing. Why do I have to work so hard? Because when you get sort of negative. You do become a difficult person to live with. So I know that whatever you have to do in life, you embrace it. Have fun with it. Have you tried to teach a person to have fun with the difficulties of life, to embrace them? Now you find that you never get a difficult character. So you'd see a person who is a difficult person to live with. It is because they're fighting their life and they're angry at just what life gives them. I know the body working too hard. Why do I have to do all of this? Why does all these things happen to me? Why is this life so tough for me? And they take it out on you and all the other people they live with. Hope I never take it out on the monks, which I live with instead. You know, you just embrace it. Taken on board. It's just life. You can't change life. But as I said many times, you can always change the attitude you have to life. As an attitude problem we have there. So what's wrong with working hard? Can only do one thing at a time. That's all I ever do. That's why we always say we never get angry at people not turning on their mobile phones. We embrace. Sir, thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to explain just how you can embrace the difficulties of life. And solo had a choice. I could get angry at someone not turning off their mobile phone. And what I get angry for, it's already been turned on big deals. So you don't get angry at life, you just embrace it. People make mistakes, I make mistakes, I made a big mistake. I hope she's not here today. Last Sunday, I was doing a marriage service for one of the people who comes here regularly. She married to a nice young boy. I said, you always have to get married to a boy, I suppose, if you were a girl. But I don't know why I said that. But anyway, that she was getting married and after the service student in the blessing service. And I said to her, I said, and I said to him. And that's why this this elderly man came to stand next to him. And I said, oh, is that your your father? And the old man said, no, I'm the best man. He was not very happy at me. Like I said, I was telling a funeral director on, uh. When was it? On Wednesday. Tuesday. Thursday. Thursday. Yesterday, when the funeral director. About one of the funerals. I did once for a couple of those couple who comes here, sort of while their parent, one of their parents, died and doing the funeral service and saying, oh, it's such a shame that, you know, your mother passed away. She's such a good Buddhist. And she'd done so much. And then this old lady stood up at the back and said, it's not me, it's my husband. I'm alive. It's he who's dead. That. That is stupid things. Many times. But when you make a stupid thing, instead of getting tense about it and being a difficult person, you laugh at life. And I should try and collect all my stupid mistakes and try and tell you all about them. So. So that you laugh. It's when you make a mistake. It's like a wonderful opportunity to make people laugh. And that's why one of the sayings, would you ever make a stupid mistake? And people laugh, you laugh as well because then the world never laughs at you. It only laughs with you. So we laugh as well at the stupidity of life and making a mistake. And that way we embrace and accept things, even the difficult things. And we don't become a difficult person. No matter what you have to deal with. You can embrace it and make it work. So if you learn that, then you're not one of the difficult people in life. You know, it's always other people who are difficult. I wonder who those other people are. They're us. So when we learn how not to be difficult, we can maybe give those those skills to other people, but not be so demanding of life by having an attitude which is more accepting of life. I mean, it's a problem. We know how to deal with it with the, uh. The what's it called? The sandwich method. And that way that other people in yourself can actually live peacefully together. But I've already mentioned in passing, the most difficult person in your whole life is not the boss from hell. The most difficult person is not sort of the person you you are, uh, married or your mother in law. Somebody actually told me, you know, mother in law is an anagram. You can actually change the letters of mother in law and it comes out Hitler woman. I might get into trouble for that one, but it's true. Work it out. Right out, mother in law. And you can see it. But many mothers in law are not Hitler Women's. They're very nice people. But whoever is a difficult person person in your life, that sometimes that can be you and the most. Actually, they're not the most difficult person in life. The most difficult person in life is yourself. Isn't it the one you have a hardest time living with, at peace and embracing and being kind to is you. And it's important to recognize that learning to live with difficult people. First of all, you have to learn how to live with a difficult year. And why is it difficulty with you anyway? Who do you want to be? And of course, if you want to be something other than you are, if you want to be the great meditator who can fly through the air on a Friday evening, you never seen that before that make it interesting. Or if you always want to give us the best talks, or if you always want to be the wisest and skillful, um, comedian and get everyone always to laugh at your jokes. I see one of the, um, my favorite comedians. He once said he wrote his autobiography, and he said when he was young, he always wanted to be a comedian. He said his fans would laugh at him for wanting to be a comedian. Now he's a comedian that don't laugh anymore. What was the other? One of his other favorite jokes was he said when I die, he was contemplating on death, which is a Buddhist thing to do. So this is almost a Buddhist joke. He said, when I die, I want to die in my sleep, just like my father. He died in his sleep. Not like it. Not like the passengers in the bus. He was driving at the time, screaming and shouting. That was a nice joke. Anyhow, I was going for this story. So it's like being kind to yourself and accepting yourself is actually learning not to be your own enemy. Not to be a difficult person to yourself. So, you know, I have got my idiosyncrasies and they've all been on display for the last 20 years in this place. You know, you know who I am, but you accept yourself as you are. You relax. You allow yourself to make mistakes. You allow yourself to be who you are. You have this beautiful sense of embracing yourself with all of your idiosyncrasies. In other words, you become at peace with yourself. And that's actually what many people do when they come to the place like this. They learn how to accept themselves as they are, to be at peace with themselves, and not being the most difficult person in the world to live with. Strange thing that as a monk I spend many, many hours by myself. And sometimes people ask that as a monk he never had a wife. Haven't got kids. Aren't you ever lonely? Sometimes on retreats, you never speak to a person. Two weeks. Did a six month retreat once. Never spoke to a person or saw anyone for six months. Why aren't you lonely? I had to ask them when they asked that question. Actually, I'm never lonely. I never feel sort of wanting to have to be with people. But I like people. But I don't have to be with people. So even in times of solitude, I never feel lonely. When they asked me that question the first time, I thought, why not? I realize, actually, that there's always somebody around me. And so because I'm a friend of myself, because I like me, I'm always with my best friend at night time in my cave where I live at serpentine. I always go to sleep with my best friend, me. And because I'm at peace with myself and accept myself, I understand I'm not perfect, but I'm good enough. Then I'm never lonely. Lonely people, a people who don't like themselves. People are afraid of themselves. So when no one else is around, you're with this strange and terrifying being called me, which you haven't really made peace with yet. Haven't you understood yet? But once you understand who you are, you accept yourself with some kindness. You become at peace with yourself after you like yourself, you find. One of the greatest insights. You could ever have his. I'm okay. Insight to realize there's absolutely nothing wrong with you as you are. You are perfect. You don't believe that, which is why you keep trying to change yourself. When you make peace with yourself and accept yourself for who you are, then you're a friend to yourself. You never feel lonely because you're there all the time. Only people who don't like themselves feel lonely. They are the biggest problem. They are the difficulty. And something strange happens once you actually solve that difficulty. You who make peace with yourselves and the ease with yourself. No one else in the world will ever be difficult for you. There won't be difficult people anymore, because the difficulty of other people is just a projection from yourself. It's why I've noticed when people criticize others, he talks too much. I notice the person doing the criticism also talks too much. And I've seen people say, you, you eat too much. It's only fat. People say others eat too much. It's amazing how people criticize because it's something in their character they don't like about themselves, which they project onto other people. Now, notice, I don't think it's a common sort of psychological trait. So the only reason you find other people difficult is because you find yourself difficult. So if you can actually heal the problem, you come into peace with yourself, being at ease with yourself, accepting yourself. Then you can find you can accept just about every other being. And of course, as a monk, I'll count a piece with myself a long time ago. So this crazy people come and talk to me. Stupid people come and talk to me. Why is people beautiful people? They're all beautiful people. It's just who they are. So I respect people. And of course, I've been in these jails. And so there's these real crooks in the jails. I've been talking to politicians and see the crooks on the outside as well. It's so they're not real crooks. They're just, you know, people that try and do their best, but sometimes they got their defilements as well. So when I start to see people for who they are and who can accept them and be with them as they are, then there's no such thing as a difficult person anymore. I remember this one lady. No other monk will be able to talk with her. She'd come on the telephone, I think. Lonely, so no knows what I'm talking about. And she would swear f words. Bloody words, bloody monks. I'm going to come up there with an M-16 and shoot you all. I said, okay, that's a nice thing to do. I understood her. No, she was a really difficult person. No, but because I never reacted back was I overreacted? Kindness. Oh, she almost loved me. She said, you know, the only person who understands me. And, of course, you never came to the monastery with an M-16 to shoot us. Or she was just taking out her venom on someone who would listen and not take it seriously, so I could understand where she was coming from, the pain of her life, the difficulties of her life, and embracing her for who she was. And then she'd calm down and become very peaceful and tell me all about her life. A very painful, difficult life. She was not a problem. She was not a difficulty. Because I understood myself, I could understand her. So you can actually calm down the so-called difficult people in this world. When you have learned how to calm down yourself. And then everybody in the world is not difficult anymore. And it's not as if they continue those bad habits, which other people think is difficult, because you can calm them down and accept them peaceful. They don't need to express that difficulty anymore in those dysfunctional ways. It's exactly the same as in that hospital. You're focusing on the beautiful parts of them, the beautiful parts of them grow how you can deal with difficult people in life and not just difficult people. The difficulty in ourselves and the difficult situations in life which occur again and again and again in life. Your flight gets cancelled because Bangkok airport is closed. Wonderful. You can spend more time in Perth. Those people in Bangkok. What a great place to say. You get two extra days of holiday and your boss can't actually blame you. It's always, why do we make life difficult? Instead of exploiting life when life doesn't go the way we want it. Great, wonderful. And even when people criticise you unfairly. What a wonderful experience that is to be criticised and test yourself out. That was the last time I told this story about the donkey who fell in the well. Once upon a time. There was a donkey just walking happily along in the forest, just munching a minding its own business. And because it wasn't mindful, he fell into a well. The well was dry, so it didn't drown and it didn't really sort of injure himself, just a few bruises and scratches. But when a donkey sort of came to his senses, he realized it was the bottom of a well and his no way up because donkeys can't climb. So the only thing the donkey thought he could do was to cry for help, to get someone's attention. Otherwise he would die down there of starvation. So he started crying for help. Oh, I can't really do donkey noises as I think. Now you have understood because probably I've got no previous incarnations as a donkey. Those people would imitate animal noises. It must be your last life. You was an animal. But as for me, I wasn't a donkey in my last. I thought, oh, that's the best I could do. Oh, oh oh, said the donkey, again and again after a couple of hours, actually, somebody heard him, and it was the local farmer. Now what's making that noise? And so he came over and saw it was coming from the well looked down. My goodness, the donkey has fallen down that well. Now that farmer never liked that donkey. The donkey was always eating his farm produce and was being very stubborn. Will never do what the farmer wanted. And it also realized that war was a very dangerous thing. Somebody might fall in that well, a human. So he thought of a wonderful idea. He could get rid of that dangerous well. And the donkey. At the same time, he got out of spade and started filling that well with earth. The cruel farmer. Now, if you do something like that, it's called bad karma. If you do any bad karma, you're going to get unpleasant consequences, as you will see as this story develops. And so this donkey, the bottom of the well, thinking at first the farm would help him realize the farm was trying to kill him by shovelling all this dirt over the donkey. And when the donkey realized that. Oh, oh, oh. Even louder. But that didn't stop the farmer. He just kept shovelling more dirt over this donkey, more and more dirt, trying to fill in the well and bury the donkey alive. And after a while, the donkey went quiet and never said anything. Farmer thought, I've killed him. I've buried him good riddance. And kept on shuffling. But the donkey hadn't died. The donkey, who must have also gone to non-Maori in a previous life, had insights. He was a very smart donkey. Never underestimate donkeys. His insight was this instead of complaining when people throw dirt all over you, instead of complaining, just shake it off. Trade it in. And he found he was growing a centimeter taller. The next, the next shovel full of earth. Shake it off. Stamp it in. It was another centimeter higher. So every time, every shovel of earth, he was getting closer and closer to the top of the well. Now the farmer, thinking the donkey had died already paid no attention at all. Shovelling shovel. When a pair of donkey ears appeared above the top of the well, several shovel, shovel, shake it off. Stamp it in until a donkey head appeared on the top of the well, and before the farmer realized the donkey was close enough to the surface, it jumped out and bit the farmer on the backside as not because the donkey didn't like the farmer, but because he had to show the farmer the law of karma. He was just an agent of cause and effect and ran away. And that's how the farmer escaped from the. That's how the donkey escaped from the well. And the more of that story is, and I told that to politicians, I even actually told that the president of Sri Lanka a couple of years ago, he said, I can see he loved that story because being a politician and people always throwing dirt on you stamp it, shrug it off, stamp it in and you get higher moral ground. So this is to say with you, people criticize you, your husband calls you ugly, you call him stupid. Whatever it is, just shrug it off, stamp it in, and you get closer to the top of the well, that's hard to do with difficult people. So if people sort of call me sort of lazy because I haven't got a proper job. I say, well, in this time of economic difficulty, I'm freeing the labor market up for you people to get jobs rather than take it myself. If people think, oh, you're scared of relationships because you don't have children, I'm saying I am making the planet sort of more carbon neutral. Because if you have kids, how many how much of a carbon footprint do you get with kids? So, like being celibate, I'm doing my bit for overpopulation. So if they say so, whatever it is, when people criticize you, you can always turn it around, shake it off, and you don't need to think that they're making life difficult for you. You only make life difficult for yourself and no one else does. There is no such thing as a difficult person, basically, except yourself. So you get yourself right. Make peace with yourself. You find that everything in life will then also be at peace. And all the difficult people will just be people that saw human beings just being human beings. Mosquitoes being mosquitoes. Donkeys being donkeys. Farmers being farmers. How to deal with difficult people. Thank you for listening. So who's going to be the first difficult person and ask a question? Any questions or comments tonight? That's a great way of stopping questions. I was a social net with a difficult person now going, oh, you got a question? Okay, got a question. Okay. Children who are become difficult if you don't pay attention to them. The attention seekers in life instead of how you deal with them. That's just children being children, not being difficult children. Yes, yes, try and find time with if you haven't got time with them. So if you can't find time with them. So it's not a difficulty, it's just the nature of children. If they want attention from other people, they haven't got attention from their parents. Sometimes they try it on the with their teachers. You just do what you can, but you can't please everybody. So where's the difficulty there? The only difficulty is if you think that children shouldn't be like that, or you think that you shouldn't be like that, but accept that's part of life and you do what you can. You can't do more than that. Then difficulty finishes embracing the reality. The children wanted to seek attention. Homewrecker is an answer we accept about myself skirting around it. There you go. I used I think they had the responsibility. And the girl is a demon. You have to point out there's a demon in them, in a sense that they point out that they're causing trouble to other people and difficult to other people. That has to be pointed out. How you pointed out is an interesting way, and sometimes we haven't got the resources to point it out at this particular time. We're tired. We've got other kids to look after in a classroom, but sometimes you can find time to take them aside later on. It reminds me of the late Harvey Placid of talking about him. He was the new nausea who died recently. He was a good friend. I went to his funeral service and I remember at a conference. And anyway, it was actually father Frank Brennan was the Jesuit priest, and he asked this question and he said, no, I do work in universities. He said, it's so easy to get on with Buddhists, with Hindus, with Jewish, all, all religions, any difficulty houses with are born again. The fundamentalists know these sort of charismatic Christians. He asked Abbot Plastic, not me. He said, what would you be advice to deal with the charismatic Christians, the real troublemakers. Another, Prasad said. Take him out one by one. The latest thing for an abbot to say. He had a great sense of humour. But then he said afterwards. Deal with them later on, singly, one by one. There's actually a very beautiful piece of advice, because if a kid's a bit of a troublemaker, sometimes people take him aside by themselves. It's much easier to deal with. The social context sometimes exacerbates some of the difficulty. Put them aside later on. Just total one by one. Find out what's going on. Sorry. What would you say to them that you can never predict what you're going to say? No way can I predict what I'm going to say on a Friday night, or somebody actually comes up to me, they've got a problem. What I'm going to say to them. Your job is never plan what you're going to say. If you do, then you're not reacting to the moment. You're not being intuitive. You're not listening to the other person. So your job is to bring them in and see what happens. Listen. Be kind. Connect and see what comes next. That's why you should always, as I say, always follow your gut feeling. Except when you've got irritable bowel syndrome. So your intuition is actually very strong and very smart. If you can only tap into that by taking away all these plants. Okay. I think that's what you're going to get. Another question. Wow. They've been very difficult in that corner. I'll just take you out afterwards. Yeah. Come on. Where you go? But the mosquitoes taught me was how wonderful it is to be in Australia when there aren't so many. Now when I say they told me it's actually not to react so much because we want to just let them be. Actually, there wasn't so many mosquitoes on me. The more I reacted, the more the mosquitoes came. And I found out afterwards that mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide coming from your pores. The higher metabolism, the more you've got a neon sign to mosquitoes. No action. Brahm Steiner, please come in and take a meal. But when I really relaxed, I didn't bother about them because you weren't worrying. Your metabolism went down. You were more calm and peaceful, which meant not so much carbon dioxide was coming out from your pores. Which means eventually they couldn't find you. They actually taught me a great lesson. The more you worry about these things, the more you bring them to you, the more you let go and leave them alone and be at peace, the more invisible you are to mosquitoes. It taught me how to just not worry about things, even if they're irritating. Understanding life sometimes is irritating, and the only thing you can do is let it be. Don't fight it and the irritation disappears. Literally. That's what I learned from mosquitoes, a great teachers. The more you fought them, the more they came. Out. Some are, some put up. I go put a bigger one to be what they are. So I cut open a what are the more common? My son. Sir. Party piano. I got a song for a son. Go, son! Chinaman.