I was working with Lama Yeshe once, and people were coming in, one person said this, and another complained about that, and he just listened to all of them but did not react. It was like water off a duck’s back. He heard it and handled what was important. But he did not react.

People may say all kinds of things. It is important to be able to differentiate what information is important that we need to deal with at that moment or later, and what information to completely disregard. They say you have to pick your battles. Every time somebody says something, and you go, “This is something to be dealt with and I have to correct this person,” you are going to become unbearable. Sometimes, you just have to let things go. You have to really let it go now, instead of exploding later on. Clearly, when you are suppressing it and stacking it up, it is not like water off a duck’s back. It is going into the container of “my grudges to throw at somebody next time we argue”. That is not very helpful.

Sometimes people tell us stuff and we respond to it and put ourselves in the middle of their emotional trip, which is not at all helpful. Some people love to do that. They throw out hooks and they want to hook us into their drama, and you have to know when to just let it go, not bite the hook, and not to insert ourselves in something that is somebody else’s problem to work out.

For example, A comes to me and complains about B, and then I get all worked up, “A is unhappy because B did something that A is unhappy about, so we have two unhappy people, and I had better fix it and make everybody happy because if they are not happy, I will get too anxious in this environment.” I try to placate A, then I go to B and I say, “You said this and that and A is mad at you because of it…” Instead of placating B, B gets mad, and goes to A and says, “So-and-so told me that you said this and that about me.” Then A says, “Well, yes, I did,” or, “No I didn’t, so-and-so exaggerated it.” Then they both get mad at you for exaggerating it. Such drama is none of our business.

If somebody comes to us speaking badly or venting, it is good if we can help the person to calm down. If we can help others look at their anger and realise that they are angry and apply the Dharma antidotes, that is also good. But we do not need to get involved, going back and forth between the two parties, trying to fix their problem which we have taken on as our problem when it is none of our business.

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