Dealing with Difficult People
I live in a Buddhist subculture. I don't just mean the place where I live, but most of the people I interact with are at least nominally Buddhist. Because they have all had extensive teachings on karma and compassion and working with the mind, I have higher expectations of them than I do of the rest of society. However, those people--especially the ones who are involved in Dharma-center work--are often at the end of their rope, over-worked, stressed out. That stress shows up in the form of unfriendliness and short tempers. So, I started thinking, how can we change the system, the culture around our Dharma centers so that people have a better way to handle the stress. Should we make more structure so that their time is more protected--certain hours of the day that are silent or for formal meditation practice only? Or does some kind of training program need to be implemented to target these Dharma workers and show them how to practice Lo-Jong, Thought Transformation, i.e., how to tra