#channel/bodhi-light-teachings  Want to upset the feeling is internal. Okay? Most people uh take that internal pressure and then they let it out. Dump it on someone. Dump it on the children. Dump it on the next person they encounter and so forth because they need to release it. Yeah. Agree. That's what natural when we upset we need to release it otherwise we go crazy. Thank you for having tea with me again today, Master. Always a pleasure to speak with you. You know, I think one of the hallmarks of human experience is we often encounter people in our lives that cause us a lot of grief. You know, whether they make us angry or drain our energy, it can be our family member. It can be somebody at work. You know, people that we often find to be toxic. Just people who cause us a lot of trouble. What should we do in those moments? How do we deal with people like that? Well, you get upset. Don't deny it. Yes. And this is the thing. People, most people I find I noticed that most people would deny it. They said, "No, I'm not angry." And you can tell from the boys, they're not angry at all. You know, or the way they look. No, I'm not angry. you know, passive people, passive aggressive, it's being dishonest and you lose respect from that person. Okay? To me, uh, you have to be true to yourself. Don't worry about that person yet. If someone makes you angry, you have to admit, why am I angry? Acknowledge it. There's no need to try to pretend you're not angry. We all humans. We experience feelings. We experience anger more often than we're supposed to. And that's part of life. That's a life experience. It's nothing wrong with being angry. Mhm. Not at all. It is better for yourself to be truthful to yourself. You need to acknowledge to yourself you're angry. Yes. Boy, am I angry. This person has a way of making me so angry. Okay. You acknowledge to yourself again. And what do you do next? I don't know. You acknowledge to that person as well. Wait. So you're saying I have to tell them that I'm angry at them. Oh yeah. That's what I would do. I say, "I don't know what happened, but when you said that, it makes me very upset and I apologize." You apologize to them. Absolutely. What? What if they're wrong? It doesn't matter. They're wrong. You're angry, then you're wrong. Oh, that's the bottom line. If I'm angry, I'm wrong. Ultimately, you're wrong. If you're cool, you're not supposed to be angry. Well, what if I'm not cool? You're not cool, then we can stop the talk right now. No point in going any further. Okay. Okay. I'm going to talk to cool people. Okay. But I'm trying to get to cool. How do I get to that cool level? I just told you the biggest mistake people make, I've noticed, is that they pretend they're not angry. They will not acknowledge that person make them angry. You know what happens more often than not is that's intentional. It's on purpose. They do things to irk you, to make you angry, makes you upset sometimes. I notice and if you deny it, uh they lose respect for you. If you deny what you feel, acknowledge you not acknowledge it. you lose, you will not like yourself either because you basically are telling a lie. Yeah. Why can't you be... Why can't we be ourselves that we admit that we are greedy, we angry, we made a mistake. It's just part of being part of the human experience. But you know what is to be angry. Some of us I think don't want to give them that power to say you didn't make me angry. That's a sometimes I think that's a natural instinct. I know Maybe stupid if you're weak. Yeah. You're afraid that they that person knows you're angry and therefore they you're weak and therefore you need to protect your weak flank. Therefore you pretend you're not angry. You will not uh let them know you're angry because you fearful. You're afraid and that weakness will always be there. He keep on pretending. When you say I am angry. Okay. When you did that, he made me angry and I apologize. And then what? And did you really... Oh, by the way, did you mean to make me upset? Ah, this is that's a that's a tricky one. You see? Uh, so that's why now you put the ball on their court. I said, why did you do that? Why did you try to make me angry? Okay. And that person says, "No, I didn't mean to." They apologize. Now we can move on and and live ever happily ever after. On the other hand, that person says, "Really? I made you angry." And that's when you when you do that naturally that person has a little bit more respect for you because he likes the fact that you acknowledge it. You're strong enough to acknowledge it. Even if he does it on purpose, okay? He'd be so surprised because most of the time when he does it to others, invariably they all pretend that they're not affected. Master, in the past I think you've talked about the role of compassion in dealing with people, particularly difficult people. So h how do we do that? This is uh uh again is a Buddhist teaching where when you get upset, the Buddha teaches us to be compassionate. I struggle with that personally. To me, it doesn't work because I'm upset. I don't have I find it hard when I'm upset to be compassionate towards someone who made me upset. It's illogical. Mhm. I don't know about you, but someone you walk by. So, I say go back to your country. Okay. It makes me upset. And as I—I told you when upset, okay, I'm upset. Yeah. And you expect me to say I'm going to be compassionate towards you to deal with my compassion. Heck no. When upset I need to acknowledge my being upset. I want you to be yourself. This is very important. You have to live your life. Don't worry about, you know, use whatever Buddhist teaching that works for you. That's your reality. Okay? I admit to you most of the time when I'm upset I get upset. Don't never never mind about compassion. I'm upset. Okay, let me tell you what I do when I get upset. Contrary to other people, they would try to distract themselves. I would use that being my being upset to motivate me to meditate because when upset the feeling is internal. Okay, most people uh take that internal pressure and then they let it out, dump it on someone, dump it on the children, dump it on the next person they encounter and so forth because they need to release it. Yeah. Agree that's what natural when we upset we need to release it otherwise we go crazy. Yeah. So another form of release ordinary people is a take a drink or they distract themselves. It's a form of release. Distracting yourself is a form of release. That's all. Okay. I don't do that. Now my best way for me I found to release it is to meditate. There's something magical about when you get upset and instead of pretending you're not upset instead of distracting yourself instead of blaming someone else I first thing I do is say okay I'm upset this is not good for me I need to fix this problem because it's going to happen again it happened before it's going to keep on happening it will only get worse... Okay. So, I need to fix this. And the best way to fix it for me personally is I cross my legs. I meditate. Is it possible to reach a state as part of our meditative practice so that we're no longer reactive to people where we either not we don't feel anger at all when you know toxic people are around or we can recognize the the anger or the disturbance in the mind right away and just kind of cut it off. Is that possible? You're really upset. First, you acknowledge you're angry. And number two, you scratch your legs. You look your anger and said, "Why am I so angry?" Okay, I need to make this go away. That's my need. I need to make this anger go away. Okay, so I'm going to... You are hotaded right now. You're upset and you need to calm yourself down. This is why you need to meditate. Okay, if you distract yourself, go play a video game, go drink, okay, it distract you temporarily, but the seed of anger is still there. It's going to burst, open again. And next chance it will get worse. It will get explode bigger next time. Okay? when you distract yourself when you acknowledge your anger and you go and meditate and you look at yourself and say I need to fix this problem why am I so angry and right there step number two is that you don't blame the other person you said this is me this is my problem and in order to fix our problem step number three I need to calm down if I don't calm down there's no point in talking about fixing you are hotheaded you don't listen to reason you can't see anything. You can only see red. So that's why you need to calm down. And when you cross your legs and you say, "I—I need to calm down." You what do I need to do to calm down? Recite Buddha's name. Concentrate my breathing. Contemplate kindness. Whatever you do, that natural process there will help you dissipate your anger a lot quicker than otherwise. So now all of a sudden you have developing you are developing the ability to dissipate your anger. That's a skill that requires the opportune time for you to develop. When you're so angry, that's the best time for you to develop the ability to dissipate very dissipate anger very quickly. Now, as you do that more often, you find that you're able to dissipate your anger quicker and quicker and quicker. Wow. And that's a skill. When you're able to do that, then you can use compassion to kill the source of your anger.