The Art of Happiness (23 page)

 

 

 

Shortly before one session with the Dalai Lama, I happened to run into an administrator of a facility where I used to work. During my tenure at his facility we had a number of run-ins because I believed that he was compromising patient care in favor of financial considerations. I hadn't seen him in quite a while, but as soon as I spotted him, all of our arguments came flooding back and I could feel the anger and hatred welling up inside me. By the time I was ushered into the Dalai Lama's hotel suite for our session later that day, I was considerably calmer, but still feeling a bit unsettled.

“Let's say that someone makes you angry,” I began. “Your natural response to being hurt, your immediate response, is to get angry. But in a lot of cases, it's not just a matter of getting angry at the time you're being hurt. You might think about the event later, even much later, and every time you think about it you become angry all over again. How would you suggest dealing with that kind of situation?”

The Dalai Lama nodded thoughtfully, and looked at me. I wondered if he sensed that I wasn't bringing up the topic for purely academic reasons.

“If you look from a different angle,” he said, “then surely the person who caused this anger in you will have a lot of other positive aspects, positive qualities. If you look carefully, you will also find that the act which has made you angry has also given you certain opportunities, something which otherwise would not have been possible, even from your point of view. So with effort you'll be able to see many different angles to a single event. This will help.”

“But what about if you look for the positive angles of a person or event and can't find any?”

“Here, I think, we would be dealing with a situation where you might need to make some effort. Spend some time seriously searching for a different perspective on the situation. Not just in a superficial way. But in a very pointed and direct way. You need to use all your powers of reasoning and look at the situation as objectively as possible. For instance, you might reflect on the fact that when you are really angry at someone you tend to perceive them as having 100 percent negative qualities. Just as when you are strongly attracted to someone the tendency is to see them as having 100 percent positive qualities. But this perception does not correspond with reality. If your friend, who you view as so wonderful, were to purposely harm you in some way, suddenly you would become acutely aware that they aren't composed of 100 percent good qualities. Similarly, if your enemy, the one you hate, were to sincerely beg your forgiveness and continue to show you kindness, it's unlikely that you would continue to perceive them as 100 percent bad. So, even though when you are angry at someone you might feel that the person has no positive qualities, the reality is that nobody is 100 percent bad. They must have some good qualities if you search hard enough. So, the tendency to see someone as completely negative is due to your own perception based on your own mental projection, rather than the true nature of that individual.

“In the same way, a situation that you initially perceive as 100 percent negative may have some positive aspects to it. But I think that even if you have discovered a positive angle to a bad situation, that alone is often not enough. You still need to reinforce that idea. So you may need to remind yourself of that positive angle many times, until gradually your feeling changes.
Generally speaking, once you're already in a difficult situation, it isn't possible to change your attitude simply by adopting a particular thought once or twice. Rather it's through a process of learning, training, and getting used to new viewpoints that enables you to deal with the difficulty.”

The Dalai Lama reflected for a moment, and, adhering to his usual pragmatic stance, he added, “If, however, in spite of your efforts, you do not find any such positive angles or perspectives to a person's act, then for the time being the best course of action may be to simply try to forget about it.”

 

 

 

Inspired by the Dalai Lama's words, later that evening I tried to discover some “positive angles” to the administrator, ways in which he was not “100 percent bad.” It wasn't hard. I knew him to be a loving father, for instance, trying to raise his children the best he could. And I had to admit that my run-ins with him had ultimately benefited me—they had been instrumental in my decision to quit working at that facility, which ultimately led to more satisfying work. While these reflections didn't immediately result in an overwhelming liking for this man, they unquestionably took the bite out of my feelings of hatred with surprisingly little effort. Soon, the Dalai Lama would offer an even more profound lesson: how to completely transform one's attitude toward one's enemies and learn to cherish them.

The Dalai Lama's primary method of transforming our attitude about our enemies involves a systematic and rational analysis of our customary response to those who harm us. He explained:

“Let's begin by examining our characteristic attitude toward our rivals. Generally speaking, of course, we do not wish good things for our enemies. But even if your enemy is made unhappy through your actions, what is there for you to be so joyful about? If you think about it carefully, how can there be anything more wretched than that? Carrying around the burden of such feelings of hostility and ill will. And do you really want to be that mean?

“If we take revenge upon one's enemy, then it creates a kind of vicious cycle. If you retaliate, the other person is not going to accept that—he or she is going to retaliate against you, and then you will do the same, so it will go on. And especially when this happens at the community level, it can go on from generation to generation. The result is that both sides suffer. Then, the whole purpose of life becomes spoiled. You can see this in the refugee camps, where hatred is cultivated towards another group. This happens from childhood on. It is very sad. So, anger or hatred is like a fisherman's hook. It's very important for us to ensure that we are not caught by this hook.

“Now, some people consider that strong hatred is good for national interest. I think this is very negative. It is very short-sighted. Counteracting this way of thinking is the basis of the spirit of nonviolence and understanding.”

Having challenged our characteristic attitude toward one's enemy, the Dalai Lama went on to offer an alternative way of viewing one's enemy, a new perspective that could have a revolutionary impact on one's life. He explained:

“In Buddhism in general, a lot of attention is paid to our attitudes towards our rivals or enemies. This is because hatred can be the greatest stumbling block to the development of compassion and happiness. If you can learn to develop patience and tolerance towards your enemies, then everything else becomes much easier—your compassion towards all others begins to flow naturally.

“So, for a spiritual practitioner, one's enemies play a crucial role. As I see it, compassion is the essence of a spiritual life. And in order for you to become fully successful in practicing love and compassion, the practice of patience and tolerance is indispensable. There is no fortitude similar to patience, just as there is no affliction worse than hatred. Therefore, one must exert one's best efforts not to harbor hatred towards the enemy, but rather use the encounter as an opportunity to enhance one's practice of patience and tolerance.

“In fact, the enemy is the necessary condition for practicing patience.
Without an enemy's action, there is no possibility for patience or tolerance to arise. Our friends do not ordinarily test us and provide the opportunity to cultivate patience
_;
only our enemies do this. So, from this standpoint we can consider our enemy as a great teacher, and revere them for giving us this precious opportunity to practice patience.

“Now there are many, many people in the world, but relatively few with whom we interact, and even fewer who cause us problems. So when you come across such a chance for practicing patience and tolerance, you should treat it with gratitude. It is rare. Just as having unexpectedly found a treasure in your own house, you should be happy and grateful towards your enemy for providing that precious opportunity. Because if you are ever to be successful in your practice of patience and tolerance, which are critical factors in counteracting negative emotions, it is due to the combination of your own efforts and also the opportunity provided by your enemy.

“Of course, one might still feel, ‘Why should I venerate my enemy, or acknowledge his or her contribution, because the enemy had no intention to give me this precious opportunity for practicing patience, no intention of helping me? And not only do they have no wish or intention to help me, but they have a deliberate malicious intention to harm me! Therefore, it's appropriate to hate them—they are definitely not worthy of respect.' Actually, it is in fact the presence of this hateful state of mind in the enemy, the intention to hurt us, that makes the enemy's action unique. Otherwise, if it is just the actual act of hurting us, then we would hate doctors and consider them as enemies because sometimes they adopt methods that can be painful, such as surgery. But still, we do not consider these acts as harmful or the acts of an enemy because the intention on the part of the doctor was to help us. So, therefore, it is exactly this willful intention to harm us that makes the enemy unique and gives us this precious opportunity to practice patience.”

 

 

 

The Dalai Lama's suggestion to venerate one's enemies because of the opportunities for growth they provide might be a bit hard to swallow at first. But the situation is analogous to a person seeking to tone and strengthen one's body through weight training. Of course, the activity of lifting is uncomfortable at first—the weights are heavy. One strains, sweats, struggles. Yet it is the very act of struggling against the resistance that ultimately results in our strength. One appreciates good weight equipment not for any immediate pleasure it provides, but for the ultimate benefit one receives.

Perhaps even the Dalai Lama's claims about the “rarity” and “preciousness” of The Enemy are more than just fanciful ratio nalizations. As I listen to my patients describe their difficulties with others, this becomes quite clear—when it comes down to it, most people don't have legions of enemies and antagonists they're struggling with, at least on a personal level. Usually the conflict is just confined to a few people. A boss perhaps, or a coworker, an ex-spouse, a sibling. From that standpoint, The Enemy is truly “rare”—our supply is limited. And it's the struggle, the process of resolving the conflict with The Enemy—through learning, examining, finding alternative ways of dealing with them—that ultimately results in true growth, insight, and a successful psychotherapeutic outcome.

Imagine what it would be like if we went through life never encountering an enemy or any other obstacles for that matter, if from the cradle to the grave everyone we met pampered us, held us, hand-fed us (soft bland food, easy to digest), amused us with funny faces and the occasional “goo-goo” noise. If from infancy we were carried around in a basket (later on, perhaps on a litter), never encountering any challenge, never tested—in short, if everyone continued to treat us like a baby. That might sound good at first. For the first few months of life it might be appropriate. But if it persisted it could only result in one becoming a sort of gelatinous mass, a monstrosity really—with the mental and emotional development of veal. It's the very struggle of life that makes us who we are. And it is our enemies that test us, provide us with the resistance necessary for growth.

The practice of approaching our problems rationally and learning to view our troubles or our enemies from alternative perspectives certainly seemed like a worthwhile pursuit, but I wondered to what degree this could really bring about a fundamental transformation of attitude. I remembered once reading in an interview that one of the Dalai Lama's daily spiritual practices was the recitation of a prayer,
The Eight Verses on the Training of the Mind,
written in the eleventh century by the Tibetan saint, Langri Thangpa. It reads, in part:

After I read about this, I asked the Dalai Lama, “I know that you've contemplated this prayer a great deal, but do you really think it is applicable these days? I mean, it was written by a monk living in a monastery—a setting where the worst thing that might happen is someone gossiping about you or telling lies about you or perhaps the occasional punch or slap. In that case it might be easy to ‘offer the victory' to them—but in today's society the 'hurt' or bad treatment one receives from others might include rape, torture, murder, etc. From that standpoint, the attitude in the prayer really doesn't seem applicable.” I felt a bit smug, having made an observation that I thought was rather apt, the ol'
bon mot.