to go out, go out. Make a run for it quickly before I start my jokes. Those of you who

have got more tolerance of bad humor, please stay.

Okay, somebody, again this evening, gave me a great suggestion for a talk, which is concerning

how we put these teachings into practice in life. The talk this evening is on how to deal

with difficult people. [laughs] I'm sure that's relevant to your life. I don't know why there's

so many difficult people in the world, but I'm sure you've met many of them and even today.

The reason I give talks like this is to show just how we can apply these great insights

for meditation in Buddhism to help solve many of the problems in this world. The whole point

of Buddhist teachings is to lessen suffering, to give more freedom as we grow closer and

closer and closer to the pure freedom and bliss and ease of enlightenment.

I know, just this afternoon, giving a talk at Curtin University, I was reminded of something

I said last Monday night where some people who had never heard of Buddhism before, were

asking the old question, "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.

[laughter]

Ajahn: You have to be practical about these things. You just ask our treasurer.

It's also a way of life. It's a way of dealing with the problems of life. It's many, many things.

I usually focus on the practical aspects of Buddhism in these Friday night talks and today,

how to deal with the difficult people you see from time to time in your life when you meet with them.

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. I don't know what it is like, but sometimes as a Monk you

attract difficult people. I'm not saying you're difficult. [laughter]

Ajahn: ...because people have got nowhere else to go, and, sometimes, a monk's kindness

and compassion means that you accept everybody.

First of all, how you deal with difficult people, to know that difficult people are

par for the course. When we understand that, we understand it's not unusual to have difficult

people. No matter what you do, 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, they're a great blessing 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 the difficult

ones, which is why I learn from my teacher in Thailand, Ajahn Chah.

Ajahn means "teacher." He said that anything which is irritating you, anything which is

troubling you, that is your teacher. Being in Northeast Thailand, we'd always call the

mosquitoes "Ajahn mosquito"... [laughter]

Ajahn: ...because I learned so much from those damned mosquitoes. [laughs] That's what I

thought at the time, those mosquitoes. Because even when we just do loving kindness.

For those of you who are Buddhists, you know that we spread love and kindness to all people,

all beings, all genders, no matter what you are or 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. It's impossible. I did the best I can. I used to chant, "May

all beings be happy and well, except mosquitoes." [laughter]

Ajahn: "May all beings be free from suffering, but not those mosquitoes. They don't deserve,

what they've done to me." [laughs] I'm sure that if ever you spread loving kindness,

you've also got exceptions. [laughs] But it didn't work well when I had exceptions, so

I learned 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

hand. I said, "Come on, mosquito, you can bite me. The door of my heart is open to you.

It's only 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. I know this is your dinner, so have something to eat.

Do you know what those mosquitoes did? Sometimes difficult people and difficult beings are

like this. They take advantage of you. They put their nose into the skin, and it's irritating.

So you just endure that. 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. [laughter]

Ajahn: They were fussy. You have three or four bites for one mosquito. They were taking

advantage of my kindness. [chuckles] That's just the nature of mosquitoes. It doesn't matter.

I have plenty of blood, and I learned a lot from that.

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 that, 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 most of the difficulty of difficult people is actually coming from you, the way

we react to them.

Someone once said, "If ever you see a difficult person, remember, you only have to endure

them for maybe a few minutes, a few hours at most." Even if you live with them, it's

your husband or your wife, I don't know why you chose that person anyway. That's your

karma. [laughter] But anyway once you chose them....

Ajahn: Even if they're that close to you, you only have to live with them for a short

period of time, but they have to live with themselves all day. Sometimes when you think

how irritating they are for you, they'll be equally irritating towards themselves. 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 if they're that difficult

for you to live with, they're also difficult to live with themselves. That gives you so

much compassion. It takes away the hurt which you feel, and you notice the hurt that they

feel, that they're so difficult to you.

It's actually empathizing with the other person, taking the pain away from yourself.

Why do I have to deal with this person? Get an idea of what they are going through in their head,

in their mind, in their life. Some of these people, if they're that difficult to you and

you're an ordinary person they've probably got no friends, no one they can really relate

to, because they're such an incredibly difficult character to live with. They're so lonely.

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 dealing with such 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.

If you can't escape from it, you can always come on a retreat in my monastery or in

Dhammasara monastery. There's always some place you can get away. That's one thing you can do

It's also to know that the difficult people in life, you can actually change them. It's

a wonderful thing to know the difficulties which you face in life or difficulties which

they experience, they are impermanent. They're not always there. It's a phase which people

go through in their life, being difficult. Of course, that phase may last from birth

until death, but it ends eventually. [laughter]

Ajahn: It's not forever, but it's nice to know you can actually change people. You can

actually see them grow. How you change people is a wonderful psychology which I've learned

as a teacher, how you can interact with people and take the cause of them being difficult

to themselves and others and actually just move that, nudge that, in a 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. How is that done? I was mentioning it in a talk this afternoon

at Curtin University. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. This was a powerful little 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 their hospital. 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.

What I was talking about there was the things which you heard here before. What I was really

impressed with was afterwards there was a devout Christian who was head of one of the

wards...departmental head. He invited me to his ward to do some Buddhist chanting.

but he told me actually not to tell anybody. Now I've blown it. [laughter]

Ajahn: I said, "Why do you say that?" He said, "Because what you said just makes so much

sense." He said, "I really respect that wisdom."

He said, "What I respect most of all is you're telling us something which you'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 or psychosis, and are dysfunctional.

We just put that aside. The times that they are apparently healthy, where they're 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 times when they come out afterwards.

He said, "They were focusing on the times when they weren't delusional," and he said,

"By focusing on the times when they were healthy." He said, "A healing was happening." The times

when they were healthy were extending and the times when they were dysfunctional were decreasing.

I'd been teaching that for years. It's wonderful to see that has gotten into a modern health

system, in the only sort of mental hospital, which they have in that city state.

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'll get worse and worse and worse.

There's a classic story, and I've used this so many times. If you haven't heard this 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. [laughter]

Ajahn: Either way, it works. It's a great story of the demon who came into the emperor's

palace. Demon coming into an emperor's palace, and emperor was away. Because he was away

there was a monster, a big, ugly terrifying demon came and strolled right into the palace.

He was so frightening, so terrifying. Everybody froze in horror at 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. 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.

They said, "Get out of here! Who do you think you are? This is our emperor's seat, not yours!!

Get out, or else!" At those harsh words, the demon grew an inch bigger, more ugly, more

smelly and the language got far worse.

That made the soldiers and ministers even more upset. They got out their swords. They

got out clubs. They clenched their fists. But at every unkind word, every angry deed, even

every unkind thought, the monster just grew an inch bigger. More ugly, more terrifying,

more smelly, and the language from the monster got worse and worse and worse.

This had been going on for quite some time before the emperor came back. 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," the movie, but people said the alien is pretty terrifying. Imagine

the alien, multiplied by a thousand. This was so terrifying, not even

DreamWorks could manufacturer such a terrifying, horrible spectacle as this ugly demon

According to the story, the smell, the stench coming off this demon's body would make maggots

throw up. [laughter]

Ajahn: It takes a lot to make a maggot sick. [laughter]

Ajahn: The language coming from this demon was worse! Was worse than you'd hear in Northbridge

after both the Eagles and the Dockers lose. [laughter]

Ajahn: This was a problem, a real difficult being coming into the palace. When the emperor

came back...the reason he was emperor was he'd been to Nollamara, heard the talks and was wise.[laughter]

Ajahn: I always change these stories every time. Embellish them this way and that way,

so you could always hear a new angle.

The emperor had also read "Opening the Door of Your Heart," which is available at the "Book Shelf" for $25.00. [laughter]

Ajahn: I've also learned marketing. I was at an entrepreneurship business conference

this afternoon. But anyway, the emperor said, "Welcome. A 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?'

At those few kind words, the monster grew an inch smaller, less angry, less smelly,

less offensive. All the people in the palace realized their mistake. Instead of saying,

"Get out of here, you don't belong! What are you doing here? You don't belong in here!"

they started to say, "Welcome."

One of them said, "Actually, do you want something to drink? We've got some orange juice, freshly

squozen." Squeezed...squozen? I don't know, who cares? [laughter]

Ajahn: "Would you like something to eat? We've got some nice curry puffs." They're available

this evening. I don't know what, I didn't see what's other. "They got some curry puffs.

We got some sandwiches." Someone said, "Would you like a pizza? I can ring up.

Monster size of course for someone like you." [laughter]

Ajahn: Someone gave the monster a foot massage. Have you ever had a foot massage? Imagine

a monster, with such big feet. It took about 10 of them to give each foot a massage.

Someone else, "Do you want a cup of tea?"? We have English tea. We have peppermint.

It's 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 am just saying... [laughter]

Ajahn: Anyway, at every kind word or kind deed or kind thought the demon grew an inch smaller.

less ugly, less offensive, less smelly. It wasn't such a long time even before the monster's pizza

arrived he was back down to the size when he first began, when he first came in. They kept laying

on the kindness until that demon got so tiny one more act of kindness and that demon vanished

completely away.

The Buddha told that story in the Udana, but there was no mention of pizzas and peppermint tea.

I made that up. Buddha told that story in Udana. He said, "We call those things anger-eating

demons. When you give them anger, they get bigger, less ugly, less offensive, less smelly,

their language gets worse." He said, "The only way we can overcome the anger-eating demons

in life is with kindness. Welcome. Thank you for visiting for me."