Works like a charm

I’m celebrating the holiday season by sharing some favorite practices around dealing with difficult people! Previously I wrote about dealing with a difficult manager with equanimity. Today I’ll share about a toxic director with whom I needed to practice loving-kindness.

In Buddhist circles, loving-kindness is often prescribed as a way to deal with frustrating relationships. The common wisdom is that by shifting the tone of our own hearts, we can approach an emotionally charged situation with gentleness rather than hostility, thus disarming the other party with sheer goodwill. Sometimes there’s a transactional undertone to the way this is taught—that is, if I like you more, you’ll like me more too, and we can become better friends from here on out.

But loving-kindness also works when I don’t want a relationship with the other person at all.

Like the time I worked under a director who was notorious for nitpicking and talking down to the team. Everyone in the department would eagerly count down to her vacations, celebrate her absence, and practically board the windows and stock up on canned foods when she was about to return. 

I tried many ways to navigate this director: I spoke gently about my needs and she demanded my silence; I stood up for myself and she threatened my job; I put my head down and faded into the wallpaper, and she hunted me down like a pig after a truffle.

After a while, I noticed that this director only showed mercy when she believed she was adored—that is, when she felt loved.

And in the times when I had huge reserves of energy—when I was so rested both physically and mentally that I exuded love for all sentient beings—it was easy for this director to feel loved by me. After holiday break, for example, or after a meditation retreat, she’d approve my projects without a single note. She’d actually praise me, to the shock and awe of my colleagues.

But then came a time when I was tired. I could not muster a single positive thought about this director. Yet she was relentless. And the only way to make it stop… was to feed her some love.

Then I remembered the Patronus charm from the Harry Potter books. 

The potent spell mastered exclusively by the most powerful witches. The only way to prevent a dementor from sucking your soul. The projection of pure happiness, so strong and pure that it can ward off the ghouls, so they feed on the energy instead of the wizard.

Maybe loving-kindness could work the same way. 

I gave it a shot. As I walked into our next meeting, I conjured a sense of loving-kindness. Not “sending” it toward the director, or even toward myself. Just letting the positivity fill up and balloon out from my heart, like a bunch of cotton candy air bags deploying all around me.

We launched into the agenda, same as usual. The director, cranky as usual. And whatever caustic jab she shot at me, I answered with a slight grin on my face—a sincere one, from all the warm-and-fuzzies. Not smiling at her, and not really thinking kindly about her. Just… untouchably happy.

Because that happiness didn’t depend on any external circumstances.

Maybe I imagined it, but the director did feed on that energy instead of on me. That is, she seemed to sense the sweetness in the air, and by the meeting’s midpoint it seemed to confuse her into a similarly sweet mood. Neutralized by my bubble of joy. (I have evidence, though, that it was real: a couple colleagues later crept into my office and asked what the heck I did that morning, so they could work that magic, too.)

Although I see that director with a lot of compassion, I never came to like her. I’m confident she never liked me, either. We figured out how to coexist and nothing more. But for me, practicing loving-kindness isn’t really about what happens before or after—it’s not about who deserves to receive it, or what better relationships it might produce. It’s not about me liking you, so you’ll like me too.

It’s about cultivating my heart in this very moment.

Because when my mind is filled with loving-kindness, my mind is also safe. 

Wherever I am. And whoever I’m with.

“Abide pervading one quarter with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth; so above, below, around, and everywhere, and to all as to oneself.”
—Gotama Buddha, Majjhima Nikaya 7

A work of pure loving-kindness

My novel Deathless Monkey was written and printed as an act of pure loving-kindness for all who read it. And I’ve seen the impacts of that loving-kindness, as the book’s first readers learned about virtue, compassion, and meditation through its characters’ many (mis)adventures. Click here to check out the novel and tap into the love.

Be like dirt

As we’ve now entered the holiday season, I thought that from now until the end of year it could be useful to share my sweetest learnings and Dhamma practices around dealing with difficult people—starting with one of my absolute favorites: the Simile of the Saw, in which the Buddha gives a series of powerful analogies on the importance of equanimity in the face of harsh speech or actions.

But first, a caveat. These teachings do not condone the instigating harshness. They also do not condemn anyone who responds with anger. These teachings, for me, only indicate the high standard for us all to practice towards and—perhaps on our best days, or maybe eventually all of our days—also manage to meet.

Anyway—I became intimately acquainted with this simile a few years ago when I was navigating a fiery hellscape at work.

I’d developed a toxic relationship with my manager in which we each exaggerated the other’s faults and refused to just, like, talk about our feelings like actual adults. We became openly hostile to each other, and the only reason we remained as co-workers was because I hadn’t yet found another job and she hadn’t yet built a strong enough case to fire me. But then she called a Monday meeting… and said that HR would be there, too.

I freaked out and called my spiritual teachers, who advised me to consult the Simile of the Saw.

I did; and though the entire sutta is full of great wisdom, the part that touched my heart—and changed my life—was the Buddha’s analogy of a person who tries to dig up the whole earth. They could try for the rest of their life. They could spit and piss and shout all over the place. But “this great earth is deep and limitless… that person will eventually get weary and frustrated.”

This blew my mind because I previously thought there was certain emotional boiling point at which anyone would surely snap.

But this teaching expanded the possibilities of human equanimity to… infinity. I realized, with sudden and dizzying clarity, that I don’t have to be as patient as the most patient person I know. 

I can be as patient as… dirt.

For the whole weekend before that dreaded Monday showdown, I told myself, “Be like dirt,” and meditated with the image and sensation of myself as a dusty patch of soil. Humble as the earth. Be like dirt, be like dirt, be like dirt. 

When I met with my manager, sparks of anger came flying at me, but they snuffed out on contact and harmed no one at all. 

Through this practice—and through our mutual willingness—we salvaged our relationship. We rebuilt our dynamic with healthy communication techniques, such as stating our needs, checking our understanding, and expressing sincere appreciation. We developed warmth and banter to the point that when I left the company six months later, we gave each other parting gifts and big bear hugs, and said goodbye as friends.

The unfathomable had become reality. 

Because I learned to be like dirt.

“Even if bandits were to sever you limb from limb with a two-handled saw, anyone who had a malevolent thought towards them would not be following my instructions.”
—Gotama Buddha, Majjhima Nikaya 21

You know who else had a hard time with conflict?

Monkey King, from my novel Deathless Monkey. At first he could only argue, ridicule, and lash out with violence. But through training with a monk, he gradually learns to “be like dirt.”

Click here to follow his journey!