Zen and the Art of Dealing with Difficult People

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Buddhas appear troublesomely, ancestors teach in detail.

(Keizan) As a young Zen monk, my life was pressed against others. There was nowhere to hide. For seven years I lived in a one-mat space in the monastery meditation hall surrounded by twenty fellow monks. There we meditated, slept and sometimes ate. The life was designed to be stripped of distractions. The training process was compared to a rock tumbler. The inevitable interpersonal manifestations of selfishness were expected to grind against each other, the idea being that we novices would enter as rough pebbles and emerge as polished jewels. Sometimes feelings ran high. The only time I've ever chased someone with murder in my mind was during this period. In our little world there were a number of attempted suicides and one that went all the way.

Most often, however, the outcome was very different. I have seen for myself psychologically well-adjusted, unselfish and luminous human beings emerge from this abrasion. The essence of the work was clarity and awareness. When leavened with generosity of spirit, humour and compassion, transformation could be rapid. The quotation above, a rather free translation from the work of Japanese Zen master Keizan (1268-1325), was frequently cited by our teachers. Your troublesome Buddha is the person who presses your buttons, bringing up sensitivities and irritation, jealousy, inadequacy or other buried miscontents. No suffering can be dealt with in the abstract. It is only as these things arise into consciousness that we have the opportunity to resolve them.

The key to the transformation is to recognize the opportunity in the pain. It's so easy to blame the other person, to blame the past, to blame the system and, speaking personally, a lot of the time that's precisely what I did. It's also possible to blame yourself, even to deny the presence of such unworthy antisocial feelings.

But Zen monastery life is set up to make any of these stances unsustainable. Eventually, all being well, the trainee starts to "turn the light around" to be present with the pain, to give it an arena of non-judgemental, non-reactive awareness. In this compassionate awareness the physical, energetic, emotional and mental dimensions of the suffering begin to untwist and will eventually "re-integrate" (to use the Jungian term) into a new harmonious relationship with the whole.

None of this can happen without the initial suffering arising. Hence that difficult person is actually the true teacher, the Buddha, of the moment. And what of the teaching in detail? Subjectively, the process can feel quite relentless. Until the hot button is fully dealt with, the associated pain will arise and arise. Perhaps it's natural to think of spiritual life as a withdrawal from the distractions and drama of our humanity. This withdrawal is certainly possible. For example, after his own enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree, the Buddha was faced with a choice. He could remain, enjoying the fruits of his quest in peace and solitude, becoming a pratyekabuddha - a silent Buddha.

Or he could get up from his sitting place and begin the tiresome work of training others to confront their suffering. The fact that he is remembered reveals the Buddha's choice and the compassionate spirit that looks beyond individual benefit.

It seems that from his earliest days of teaching, the Buddha strongly promoted the ideal of sangha- spiritual fellowship. Furthermore, he defined his teaching as one in which "one does not keep quarrelling with anyone in the cosmos".

We all encounter troublesome or challenging people in our lives. They drive us up the wall, irritate the hell out of us and even prompt us to think dreadful thoughts. It might be your colleague, your downstairs neighbour, your partner or your mum, or any number of people we encounter on a regular basis, or perhaps just once.

Our language is full of colourful metaphors describing what these people do to us. We say things like "they pushed my buttons", "they grate on me", "they get on my wick", "they're a pain in the neck", "they rub me up the wrong way" or "we're just not on the same wavelength". What is it about these people that causes such discomfort? And how do we work with this discomfort so that it doesn't escalate and cause more discomfort? In this book we'll be examining a variety of situations in life where troublesome people can show up; we'll explore how the teachings of Zen and mindfulness can help. Ultimately, these teachings will show us how the most troublesome people can become our best teachers. We'll learn how we can see each of them as beautiful, unique expressions of this one universe to which we all belong we'll see their Buddha-nature.

In my experience, people have a view of Zen as a tradition of profound stillness, calmness, patience and simplicity, and expect Zen practitioners to embody these characteristics at all times. Even after more than a decade of practice, I can tell you I don't exude profound stillness all the time - in fact not even much of the time! It's possible that one day I will - but as far as I understand it, that's not actually what Zen is about. Zen is about finding your true nature and, once you've woken up to it, learning to live from that realization. But even in that place of realization (which we'll explore in detail as we go on), there will always be people who get up your nose and perhaps even make your blood boil and steam come out of your ears. Zen teaches us how to listen to those feelings and begin relating to them in a different way. Who is this book for?

This book is for anyone wanting to learn how to respond to difficult people and situations with more clarity and wisdom.

You might be someone who has a number of troublesome people in various quarters of your life, or perhaps you have one particularly enraging one, or you have brushed up against an array of them at different points in your life. You can see that there's often a pattern to your behaviour in relation to them and it usually causes pain - perhaps a great deal of pain. The only way we can grow is by facing this pain, acknowledging how we feel and how we've reacted, and making a commitment to end this repeating pattern of suffering. In this book, I assume no previous experience with mindfulness or Zen (or indeed any kind of Buddhism), and by no means do you need to identify as a Buddhist or adhere to any beliefs.

I remember when I first started practising Zen, my teacher told me to treat it like a scientific experiment. The lab was my body and mind, and although the methodology had been refined over many centuries, the result and conclusions were up to me to find. There was no correct answer - just my answer. At this point in my life, I was about 20 years old, studying for a degree in astrophysics and really appreciated this pragmatic approach. I, of course, had my head buried in equations and intellectual learning and had for some years really struggled to connect to my emotional side.