Lama Ole’s answer:
There is an old Person saying to remember in such situations: “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” You can remind them that a great many people have it much, much worse than they do. They may not like you afterwards; you might get rid of some difficult people this way. But when things are going better for them, they’ll come back and like you again. Then they might even appreciate your honesty.
Lama Ole’s answer:
If people are willing to learn, then we can stick with them. But if they’re only looking for a place to live out their bad habits, then we should stop them. You simply check whether they are developing and progressing through the space you make for them or whether they are merely using it to let their bad habits solidify. It is idiotic compassion if one allows people to strengthen negative or stupid habits. That is not good for them at all.
Actually, the old German saying is the best: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” The hardest school is the best school, and sticking it out to the end is definitely the best and fastest way to develop.
Lama Ole’s answer:
Would he jump out of the window if you destroy his fantasy? If he would, then you don’t have a friend, you have a patient. You have to check whether people can handle it when you tell them what is really happening. If they can take it, then you can destroy their illusions. Afterwards, you should stay friendly, keep your distance, but be there protectively and make good wishes.
If you can’t say anything, then in the end you can only wish them the best. Try to help them two or three times, and if that doesn’t work, then simply be nice and make good wishes.
Lama Ole’s answer:
In a case like that, I would work with mantras. Give them the good, sturdy om mani peme hung mantra, and get them used to saying it. A mantra works like a protective oil film. Disturbances usually make scratches on our mind, creating habits that we fall into again and again. But when we use a mantra, the disturbances slide back and forth and then fall away without creating habits. A good dose of om mani peme hung for everybody would be good. You just have to watch out that they don’t think you are trying to convert them by force.
Lama Ole’s answer:
If strange energies come to you, there are two possibilities: either you have a negative connection to them from before and they want to harm you, or you owe them something and they’ve come to you for help. In both cases, compassion is the best solution. Before the meditation, you wish all the best for all beings. From your heart you radiate out rainbow light in all directions, wishing that it dissolves the suffering of all beings. Then you begin with the actual meditation, and there will be no problem.
Or you can take the help of the Buddhist protectors. The most important thing with the protectors is that we don’t use their mantras right away when there is a problem. Instead, we invoke the protectors in our daily practice to make ourselves strong. Then when the disturbing energies come, we can be gentle. It’s like with dogs: only the small ones need to bark. People with no protection and no power will start out aggressively, while those who are strong are also even tempered. The strong ones watch what happens but the disturbances don’t come—their energy field is not disturbed.
That said, there are also difficult places where it is simply unpleasant for everybody. The most difficult are slaughterhouses, where many animals have died.
Lama Ole’s answer:
First, try to find out whether the source is external or internal. If the source is external—like a cemetery across the way, a slaughterhouse, or a corner with junkies or drunks—then place a mirror in such a way that it sends the bad vibrations back. Octagonal mirrors are usually used for this.
If the source is internal, then you can check whether something actually happened there that caused a lot of suffering. Did someone live there completely alone and devastated for thirty years? Was someone killed there? Did people beat each other up in there? You can try to find out what happened in the past.
On a general worldly level, it is smart to paint the walls or hang new wallpaper—with lighter colors if possible. You should also air out the room often, or you can burn something that drives away the negative energies. There is a resin from cherry trees that works well for this. I think the Catholics even use it in their incense. That is very good!
You can also hang Buddhist protectors of the five colors in the room. They make sure that nothing disturbing comes in again. Or you bring a girlfriend home with you and have lots of joy in that room; that helps, too.
Lama Ole’s answer:
That depends on your view. Annoyance can also arise from idealism—for example, if you think, “They are so wonderful and now they’re doing something so stupid again!” This type of annoyance, where there is no intent to harm beings, is actually a kind of disappointment.
If you see people on a high level, if you are sometimes disappointed by them but don’t give up your high view, if you still expect exciting things from them, then it is something good. But if you think they are impossible, then it really is anger and something negative. It can be good to sometimes shake people up if you like them. But if you want to harm them, then it’s not good.
Lama Ole’s answer:
What did Buddha say to that? If you want to kill a person, then you should consider that you’d actually only kill a corpse. Within a very short time, the person would have died anyway—perhaps they are already seriously ill. It’s not worth the trouble and doesn’t make any sense.
And what would I say? I’d say the best thing you can do is to forgive people. If you forgive them, you don’t have to meet them again in the next life—the bond is gone. If you hate people, then they show up in the next life; they’ll be just as odious and you’ll have to work with them again. So I always think, forgive them quickly, wish them all the best, and be happy that you can get away from them. That’s my advice—except when people come to you for help. Then you have a responsibility for them.
Also in relationships, I always advise separating on good terms. When people split up as enemies, it’s as if all of the experiences they had together are frozen—they have no access to them. Then in every new relationship, they’ll have to go through the same dramas, tragedies, and fiascos again. If people separate as friends and wish each other all the best, then they have their hands free and can do what they want.
Lama Ole’s answer:
When people are difficult, it’s usually best to let them do their own thing. Just keep your distance! You are not being paid to educate them. But if you can’t avoid them, then think, “I can learn patience here! Without patience, no enlightenment; without difficult people, no patience. Thank you!”
In any case, the best thing is simply to do what’s in front of your nose and not pay attention to anger. There is a story about Buddha himself. Someone came to him and really wanted to stir up trouble. Buddha listened for a while and then said, “If someone wants to give you a gift but you don’t take it, who does it belong to?” “To the giver!” the man replied. “So take your trip with you,” Buddha said. “Sorry, but I don’t need it or want it.”
You can very calmly examine whether you want to have the trip or not. If the troublesome person isn’t bothering you much, just see him as an exotic animal from the zoo. It’s different when someone is clearly disturbing many people. If they are harming others, then to some degree you have responsibility to deal with them. Then you have to check whether they are difficult because they are unable to act any other way, or whether they just want to be difficult. It’s probably best to praise them highly and then send them somewhere else. If that’s not possible because they dig their claws in and seek your constant attention, then try to make it clear to them that you don’t have much time and have to see what is possible.
But we should always have patience and also see such people as a mirror for our own mind. It also depends on our view whether we constantly meet difficult people or not. If a teacher comes into the classroom and thinks, “Oh no, what are these thirty gorillas doing here?” then he will not be able to teach the children much because you can’t teach gorillas much. But if he comes in and thinks, “Wow, what are these thirty Einsteins doing here?”—then everything becomes possible.
If you provoke difficult people, ignore them, and block them from getting what they want—making them angry—then you’ll build up negative Karma for yourself. But if you act with good motivation, if you want to help people, then things will work out well. It really depends on the motivation.
Lama Ole’s answer:
Maybe send them away and meet other people, if that’s possible. On the one hand, we shouldn’t be so slippery as to always think other people are to blame when they have a problem with us. We should listen closely.
But if people have the habit of nagging, then you can surely find other company. Life is too short for such trips. If people always want to be difficult and grumpy, then they can do it by themselves, too. We don’t have to be with them. Think of life like a play in the theater: take two roles in the comedies and avoid the tragedies.
It is funny to see the drama people produce—for example, in families. It’s a very small audience and nobody likes the piece, but they play it every day. There you can only shake your head…
We must insist that things stay interesting, that there is growth, that it’s fun. If things get silly, then you can get out of there. You can always go and meditate, read a book, visit people, and so on. You have many possibilities. Then you can return when the situation is reasonable again.
Lama Ole’s answer:
With couples or really small groups in close relationships, then surely everyone involved has a share of the problem. But when ninety percent of the people we know have the same problem with us, then we shouldn’t try to wiggle out of it by saying, “Oh, how strange, they’ve all built up the same illusion!” There we have to take a close look at ourselves.
As America’s Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” This is a good rule of thumb to check oneself and to see how one is perceived by others. If one always has the same argument with people, then perhaps one has an old anger issue or something subliminal that disturbs others. I take it quite seriously when people tell me something.
Intelligence is described as the ability to adapt to new situations. It’s a good sign if one can change now and then and cut off a few kilos of useless behavioral fat.
We aren’t being true to our principles by hanging on to stupid habits. If we are always offending others, we can’t just say, “Well, I have a personality.”
And you should really be glad when people point out your shortcomings because then you can learn. That is the basic reason why every dictatorship falls: people discover that the boss can’t stand to hear anything bad about himself. Then his inner circle starts to shield him from what’s really happening, and suddenly the whole population has taken off in another direction. The boss is left with just a little pyramid of fifteen “yes men,” and the whole thing collapses.
We should be glad to get criticism. As long as people criticize, we can learn. When they give up on you and don’t say anything or talk behind your back, then you have a problem.
Lama Ole’s answer:
The women just don’t want it so much. They don’t care as much about high positions in a hierarchical system. Women would rather work in circles than in pyramids, and they don’t enjoy power struggles as much as men do. As long as you don’t disturb a woman and her family, she is peaceful. But when a man hears about someone in the next valley who says he’s the strongest, he will cross a high mountain to check him out.
Then, when a family is started, the women usually spend more time with the children because this is more important to them than advancing in any institution. But as soon as they have more time, they start to open up to the outside again. Then they have unbeatable new experience and tremendous maturity, and they become very good teachers.
In our lineage, women have as much say as men do. We work on the level of fun and friendship. Among my own students—also among those I send out to teach and lead the centers—there are just as many women as men. But it seems that fewer women than men want to drop out of their personal life completely and devote themselves one hundred percent to something beyond personal. Most of them want something for themselves: a family or a man. But we have smart and able women who are quite good at combining the dharma on the one hand with some private life and family on the other.
Lama Ole’s answer:
There are two levels from which to see this. When one sees that people treat each other badly, it’s unpleasant and one thinks, “Why do they do that? In the next life they will swap roles and do it all over again. Why oh why?”
But at the same time, one can see things on the absolute level: both the victim and the perpetrator have buddha nature and at some point they will also realize it. For example, if someone came in here and threw a dozen hand grenades around, we certainly wouldn’t like it if bits of our precious bodies suddenly flew in all directions. We wouldn’t like it, but actually the trajectory of every piece of flesh, metal, and bone would follow the laws of higher mathematical wisdom. We must be free of attachment to our body, otherwise we’ll never understand the highest view.
Buddha gives us both levels of understanding. That’s what it is all about. Then at the end of our life, we can say—just as Caesar Augustus said as he lay dying—“If I played my role well, please applaud!” We do our best, and in the end we know we can let everything go because it is all just a dream anyway. We must meditate a lot to really understand this. But if we can grasp it conceptually as a first step, that’s also good.
Lama Ole’s answer:
Yes—for example, in the long refuge meditation, you imagine any enemies you have next to yourself. They also join in and receive the blessing of the practice. And that really works. I remember when Hannah and I went to Nepal in 1969/70, I had had a lot of fistfights in the past. I hadn’t seriously hurt anybody, but there were a few people who really wanted to settle the score—and they were ready to get together to do that, too.
While we were away for a few years learning to meditate and doing the foundational practices, I just put them beside me during the meditation. And when Hannah and I came back, they were waiting at the airport and greeted us like old friends. At some point, the whole power-field had changed. Meditating on buddhas is very powerful.
It’s like this: a hook can’t catch a ball; it can only catch a ring. If there is no openness from the other person, then nothing happens. But if there is a ring, if the person you have difficulties with is open to you, then something can be caught and the connection will improve.
Lama Ole’s answer:
In Buddhism, one speaks of four different kinds of madness:
The first kind arises if one used a lot of drugs or alcohol in former lives. Then in this life, one will be born without enough neurological connections in the brain—so the “machine” works with some defects.
Second, there are malfunctions that result from using a lot of drugs or alcohol in this life.
The third type appears when a person has lived so unhappily, brought so little joy into his life, and let himself go so much that he is no longer protected by the good impressions in the mind of a healthy person. Then various strange energies can come in and work inside a person. This is called schizophrenia.
And the fourth possibility is that a person has allowed so many negative and disturbing impressions to accumulate in the store consciousness that every time the mind comes to these points, it can’t stand it and tries to escape into something else. These would be states of paranoia.
After death, problems and disturbances associated with the body fall away, and one has new possibilities again. On the other hand, when one has built up very strong disturbing energies within oneself, then these also go along into the next life.