Becoming Wiser With Difficult People

If people were only ever kind and always did what we wanted them to, we would never know if we are becoming wiser and more compassionate or just experiencing the peace of good conditions. Difficult people are a gift because they show us exactly the teaching we are not getting and that we need to go back and do some more work on. They are teaching us how to become wiser and more compassionate.

Transcript

So I want to start with an Ajaan Brahm story tonight from his book,

Who Ordered That Truckload of Dung?

And dung in Australian is slang for crap.

So the story goes,

Every now and then,

We come home and someone has left a truckload of dung on our doorstep.

Now,

We don't know who delivered it.

There's no card.

There's no one to call to say,

Come and pick up this truckload of dung.

Kind of stuck with it.

And we have a couple options,

A couple of things we can do.

We can pretend it's not there.

And of course,

We smell it every time we walk outside.

We get that waft of the pungent smell.

We can complain about it,

Complain to anyone that will listen.

We didn't order this truckload of dung.

We don't know why it's here.

We want it to be gone.

And of course,

In the complaining,

Nothing really happens.

It doesn't go away.

But then in our third option,

We can look at this truckload of dung and we can think,

This could be some pretty good fertilizer for the garden.

And we decide to get the wheelbarrow out,

To get the shovel and start taking the dung,

You know,

Wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow out into the garden,

Mixing it with all of our soil.

And then a few months later,

Having a beautiful garden,

Fresh fruit,

Beautiful vegetables,

Bright,

Bright,

Beautiful flowers.

And we can think to ourselves,

Man,

Thanks.

Whoever dropped off that truckload of dung.

That was really useful dung.

So we are using this story to illustrate the options we have when we have a difficult person in our lives.

And of course,

We talk fairly regularly about difficult people.

It seems to come up every two or three months because there's a lot of difficult people in the world and we are really challenged with difficult people.

So even though we've looked at it from so many different angles of how we can be with difficult people,

Loving kindness meditation,

Having the wise intention of being kind to ourselves and being kind to others really helps smooth out a lot of those bumps.

I mean,

Just every now and then,

Like someone comes along and they just know how to push our buttons.

Or we're just,

We're stressed,

We're tired,

Whatever reason,

And we've got this difficult person and we can't let it go.

So we have the three options.

We can pretend it's not happening,

It's not happening,

But it's still kind of needling us,

Still bugging us.

We know we're talking with a friend and we're all of a sudden in our heads thinking about this difficult person,

Or we're on this call and we're in and out of the call because we're occasionally thinking about this difficult person.

We're pretending it's not bothering us,

But it is.

And we're not doing anything to make it go away.

And then of course,

We have the second option.

We can complain about it and we can just tell every person that we meet how annoying it is that we have this person in our life,

How difficult this is for us.

And of course,

In that situation,

We end up becoming the difficult person most likely because people see us coming like,

Oh God,

Here she comes.

She's going to just complain nonstop about this person.

I don't want to hear it anymore.

So not only do we not get rid of the dumb,

We don't get rid of the difficult person,

We become the difficult person.

And then in our third option,

We can look at this difficult person and think,

They're trying to teach me something.

There is a lesson here.

There is something in the teachings that I am not getting.

And this person is helping me see that.

Because if this person wasn't pointing this out to me,

I may not know.

I mean,

If people are just nice to us and praise us and never do anything that bothers us,

Never inconveniencing us,

Never annoying us,

We can really delude ourselves into believing,

Oh,

I'm so peaceful.

I really get the teachings.

I'm so Zen.

I'm so enlightened,

Right?

Without really getting anything.

It's just that we're experiencing good conditions.

And Ajahn Brahm has another story,

Not from this book,

From another class that he taught,

Where he talks about when he was a young monk in Thailand and he had had this particularly just blissful meditation.

And he was just sure he was enlightened.

And this was at night.

So he wakes up early the next morning.

He still feels this.

He's like,

Oh,

I'm enlightened.

I've done it.

Goes down to the morning meditation.

It's just bliss,

The whole meditation,

Nary a thought,

Just totally on cloud nine.

And so he goes into the dining hall for the one meal that they have a day.

And normally the food at the monastery was pretty bad.

They would normally just have kind of what they would call like a rotten old curry,

Rotten vegetables,

Rotten fish,

Just smelled.

It wasn't particularly good.

The monks didn't know what they were doing with the spices.

So there's nothing to write home about.

But on this particular day,

The day that he is enlightened,

A lay person has brought an offering of a curry with fresh vegetables.

They know exactly how to do the spices.

And he can just smell it.

It's wafting onto his nose.

He's like,

Oh,

Of course I am enlightened.

I am being given this beautiful curry because I'm enlightened.

We're celebrating it.

So he's in the line and Ajahn Chah,

His teacher,

Is at the front of the line and takes a big ladle of the good curry,

Puts it in his bowl.

And then he takes the whole pot of the good curry and dumps it into the other bowl or the other pot with the bad curry and just goes,

Same,

Same,

And carries on.

Well,

Ajahn Brahm is just like,

Oh my God,

Like,

Yeah,

Sure,

Same,

Same for you.

You just took the good curry.

Like,

What are you doing?

What kind of a greedy monk are you?

This is horrible.

Why would you do this?

And he realizes,

Would an enlightened person be trashing his teacher?

And he realizes,

All right,

Back to work.

So he got the lesson pretty quickly.

And the lessons are always there for us.

But I do get that it's really hard when we're caught up in the situation.

It's pretty hard for us to see the lesson there.

We're so focused on why that person is so annoying and why they shouldn't be in our lives that we really miss the lesson so much of the time.

So I thought what we would do is just go through some different examples to show us where a lesson might be to help us,

If we have a similar situation,

Or at least just even having gone over some,

To help alert us to the potential lesson.

So we'll start with something kind of small,

Some pretty small,

Not as personal type difficult people.

Maybe we're just driving down the road,

And maybe it's a one or a two-lane highway,

So one lane going each way,

And you're stuck behind a slow truck or a slow car.

And you can see yourself,

You're looking out,

You're trying to turn around,

You know,

Trying to pass them.

And you can feel you're starting to get a little upset,

And all of a sudden you're starting to think,

What an annoying person.

People shouldn't be able to drive this slow on the road.

And we can recognize in that moment,

Oh,

I thought I was more present.

I thought I was more mindful.

But apparently,

Very easily,

I can get snapped out of that.

And so it's a little lesson for us to see like,

Man,

I thought I was doing pretty good at keeping my mind in my body,

But apparently my mind's already at the store again.

And if that car wasn't driving slowly in front of me,

I wouldn't have noticed that.

And on the other side,

Of course,

Let's say you're behind the slow car,

And you're not looking to pass them,

And you're not feeling that sense of,

Oh my god,

This is wasting time.

You're just totally chill with it.

Like that's also just a really good like,

Well,

You know,

If that's something that used to bother you in the past,

A good way of saying like,

Well,

That's pretty good.

Yeah,

I'm a little more mindful.

I'm more present.

That's awesome.

Or if we're just at the supermarket,

And someone's paying with coupons,

Or paying with pennies,

Or paying,

You're just taking an inordinate amount of time or an extra long time to get through the cashier.

And we can find ourselves getting irritated and judging them.

You know,

What kind of a person does that?

It's like,

Oh,

Man,

I thought I didn't judge people anymore.

Look how quickly I judged that person.

I don't know what their situation is.

I don't know who they are.

And so it's a good lesson for us.

Like,

Man,

I need to go back and do some work on that.

I'm still a little judging people a little too easily.

We're then up the ante a little bit.

Maybe we're having a conversation with someone,

Someone we kind of know.

They've been someone we like.

They've been really nice.

They've been generous.

They've been kind.

And maybe we say,

Oh,

Let's go grab a bite to eat or something.

And as we're talking with them,

We start to realize they have some very different views than we have.

Maybe they start touching on some politics,

COVID,

Climate change pronouns,

Start touching on something.

Then we're like,

Oh,

This person has different views than I have.

And in that moment,

If we feel ourselves kind of getting in that judgmental mode of them,

Right,

Because surely they're uninformed,

Surely they're listening to news,

Fake news.

We can have all these thoughts around why they're an idiot and why they have the wrong view.

And instead of hearing them,

We're just so quick to want to launch into,

I need to set them straight.

It is my job here now to get them to see the way things really are.

And of course,

In that situation,

If we're attached to our own views and opinions,

If we're attached to our own views and opinions,

And we have that view of thinking they're lesser than us,

Of thinking we've got to get them to see from our viewpoint,

We are attached to our views and opinions,

Just as they are attached to their views and opinions.

And we are not helping anyone when we are attached to our views and opinions.

There's no coming together.

There's no looking for common ground.

We dig in our heels just as much as they dig in their heels.

And then we'll say,

Oh gosh,

The world's so divided.

And yet we won't be inclusive of people that have different views and opinions than us.

And that is a problem for us because we are probably a difficult person for someone else.

Like if they hear if we're too attached to our views and opinions,

Like,

Oh,

I won't say that around Meredith.

She's going to get all worked up about that.

So it's important for us to see that.

And if we don't have interactions with people that have different views and opinions than us,

We don't get the opportunity to see whether or not we are attached to our views and opinions.

If we're just talking with people all day that agree with us,

I mean,

We would have no idea of knowing that.

And of course,

Again,

On the other side,

If you're talking with someone who's really attached to their views and opinions and you don't find you're judging them and you don't find you have to kind of get your views down their throat,

Instead you're a little more understanding,

A little more curious,

You're looking for common ground.

Like that's really helpful to know like,

Wow,

I am,

Yeah,

I am less attached to my views and opinions.

And that was nice.

I felt like we found some common ground and maybe we're even able to move a little bit forward.

So,

You know,

It's good for us to know this,

If we're attached to our views and opinions or not.

And then just,

You know,

Something like our neighbor doing something that we don't like,

Like maybe playing the music too loudly and not saying that you can't ask them to turn the music down or maybe there's rules in your HOA about things like that.

But noticing,

Are you complaining in your head about the music?

Like what's worse,

Them playing the music loudly or you telling yourself that they shouldn't be playing it?

Right?

Resisting what's happening.

Remember,

It's how are we relating to what's going on.

Again,

It doesn't mean you can't say something,

They may or may not turn it down,

But we get so lost in our thoughts about why it shouldn't be happening,

We don't even know we don't even realize we're not even listening to the music anymore.

We're just irritated by the constant stream of thoughts of why it shouldn't be happening.

So again,

Helpful for us to know that.

And on the other side,

It's happening,

Our neighbor is playing the music really loudly and we're not bothered by it.

We think,

Oh yeah,

We'll let them have a party tonight.

I can put the fan up a little bit,

Turn it on high,

Kind of drown it out a little bit.

And if you're not bothered by it,

That's super helpful to know too.

Wow,

I used to resist things like that all the time.

It's a lot more peaceful when I don't resist things like that.

And then to really take it up a notch here,

Is our compassion reserved solely for people who are kind to us?

Or does our compassion include people that are mean to us,

That actually say really unkind things,

That really try to hurt us?

Can our compassion,

Our understanding,

Our forgiveness,

Can we include those people as well?

Or do we just hold that for a small group of people?

And this is a really important part of our practice because of course we will meet difficult people that will be really unkind to us.

And how do we see them?

What's our response?

And it's not an easy one to think about people that are harming us with compassion and understanding.

But we know they're suffering.

Anytime we have been short with someone,

Where we've been unkind ourselves,

It's because we're suffering.

We're stressed,

We're overwhelmed,

Something's going on.

And it's the same for these people too.

And there's a story of a monk,

A Tibetan monk that was in a Chinese jail in Tibet,

Been tortured for years.

True story.

And when he was released,

He was having a meeting with the Dalai Lama,

Where the Dalai Lama asked him,

He said,

What scared you the most?

What were you the most afraid of when you were in that prison?

And he said,

I was most afraid of losing my compassion for my captors.

Can you imagine?

These people are torturing him.

And he still held so true to his practice to love all beings,

Not because they're nice to us,

Not because they're doing what we want them to do,

But understanding that everyone is a result of causes and conditions.

And while that's kind of some black belt compassion,

It's pretty up there.

We can think of this even,

If we can just not judge them,

Have resentment towards them,

Not build any anger or ill will.

Like maybe it's a little bit much for us to hold them in our hearts,

But at least can you not judge them?

That's something.

And of course,

We don't ever want to forget in there as well.

And this is a lesson too,

When people are unkind to us,

To not forget self-compassion.

That's such an important part of our practice too,

Being with the pain,

With the hurt,

Right?

Allowing us to sit with it.

And so quickly,

Of course,

We just go right to the anger,

Right to the outrage.

Like we missed that part as well.

I mean,

It does hurt if someone's unkind to us and it's important for us to acknowledge that.

And then maybe we can just get to the next stage where we think,

Well,

I'm at least not going to judge them.

They don't need my judgment.

They're clearly dealing with enough stuff.

So,

You know,

It shows us our response when people are really unkind to us,

Where do we need to do the work?

Where's our compassion practice?

And I totally get,

This is not easy stuff to look at this,

Look at these people as our teachers,

But what's the alternative?

Seriously.

I mean,

We can suffer more by doing our practice of anger and judging and hatred and ill will.

I mean,

That's a practice.

That's for sure a practice.

Or we can decide that there is a lesson here and I do want to end my suffering.

What do I need to practice more of?

Do I need more compassion practices?

Do I need to reflect on the wisdom of impermanence,

Of emptiness,

Of interconnectedness,

Of karma,

Of causes and conditions?

What's the lesson here that's going to ultimately free me from my suffering?

Because there are two practices that we can do here.

One's unconscious,

One's conscious.

One's leading to more suffering,

One's leading to the end of suffering.

And I'm not suggesting that in any way we,

If someone's unkind to us,

That we would invite them over and think,

Well,

I've got to just punish,

You know,

I've got to really get the lesson and spend as much time with this person as possible.

No,

You don't need to do that at all.

Just get the lesson.

Where is the lesson?

That's what we need to look for.

And not suggesting either that we don't set boundaries around people.

If someone is being toxic,

If someone is being really harmful to us,

You know,

We're not going to go and take this from them each day.

Set boundaries around them.

You know,

This person shouldn't be in our lives if they're continuously being unkind to us.

But we don't need to judge them.

We don't need to have ill will or anger towards them.

And that's the lesson there too.

Have a boundary.

But you don't need to judge them.

You don't need to resent them.

So the reality is we are always going to have difficult people in our lives.

It's do we take that difficult person,

That truckload of dung,

And use it for our practice as showing us something that we weren't getting?

Or do we just leave the dung there and say nothing to learn here?

I mean,

The difficult people are going to keep coming,

Right?

There's always going to be difficult people.

And they will come after the lesson too.

The difference is that they won't be difficult for us anymore.

So this is our practice.

These are our teachers.

Difficult people.

They're showing us what we're not getting.

Reviews

Wow! This his track really hit hard and I will definitely listen to this one regularly.

Love this teaching. So full of wisdom. Thank you Meredith

great examples in the stories and great questions to ask myself around and about other people.

question: i’m really hard on myself? do you have a similar talk when the triggers and suffering is more inner directed than outer directed?

Beautiful!🌻 Thank you 🌞🤗 I forgot how peaceful life can be.. by acknowledging, without judging others, and ourselves.

I love listening to topics around difficult people. Thank you. 🙏🏻

So good, saving. I need to listen again to catch every last bit. So many gems in here. Thank you 🙏🏼

Thank you for sharing this with everyone. It's excellent advice and I know that I can forget to look for the lesson sometimes.

Loved this talk! Will listen again. So helpful, thank you!

Very inspiring & having compassion makes life better. Thank you.

So love this talk I will listen often …Thank you. Meredith 🙏🫶💞