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Handling insults
betaboy
Veteran
Namaste,
How to react if someone were to insult you, especially insulting remarks about one's lack of status and wealth, no job or gf, no property, nothing of value? Because in this case, their insults won't be based on false premises - they'd contain a great deal of truth about your financial and social condition.
What is one to do? If you protest, they'll say they're only stating facts about your social status(which is true).
BB
How to react if someone were to insult you, especially insulting remarks about one's lack of status and wealth, no job or gf, no property, nothing of value? Because in this case, their insults won't be based on false premises - they'd contain a great deal of truth about your financial and social condition.
What is one to do? If you protest, they'll say they're only stating facts about your social status(which is true).
BB
0
Comments
You react to their manners, not to the content of their comments.
*this one:
http://www.italiancook.ca/jokes/italian-gesture-i-dont-care.jpg
That's two precepts broken..... :rolleyes:
To not take things so seriously and to make more jokes out of things. That right there might take the edge off most insults. I have not been insulted in person in a while. So I haven't had to deal with it, but I'm thinking Ajahn Brahm's philosophy of laughing with a person or being more light hearted about it can really help.
why it isn't right speech and untrue?
the one making the gesture doesn't care to elaborate a retort...
actually it is a very nice way of ending an argument without insulting.
All the best,
Todd
If you can be mindful of it and just let things be as they are, then that which was born out from them can stay with them, and let it affect them only. Just like an engine that you let it just keep running, it only wears itself down, and uses up its own fuel and energy. Just like a spark that ignites a flame within them, we don't need to take that fire from them. Let it burn with them and if it goes out of proportion then it burns out where it starts and not onto you.
metta
If they taunt you for not having a job, a girlfriend, property, etc., simply agree that you don't have those things at the moment. I like to keep in mind that for many of us, those things come and go, but the most valuable things that we can possess and which cannot be lost unless we allow it are self-control and a good character.
Fogging is also useful when someone attempts to use criticism to manipulate us. Here is an example from the book:
"MOTHER: Sally, if you say out late so much, you might get sick again.
"SALLY: You could be right, Mom, but I'm not worried about it."
Here the mother is trying to manipulate her daughter into coming home early, instead of having fun staying out late. Instead of disagreeing with her mother, Sally agrees with her basic point, but asserts her right to make her own choice in the matter (...I'm not worried about it).
Alan
metta
Sounds, forms, smells, same story...
if the case is more serious, other actions can be taken (like the gesture I mentioned).
Hmmm... is ignoring or agreeing with the insult really the best response? I have doubts. When one person insults another what we're really seeing is an attempt at dominance. A submissive response just plays to the aggressor's hand. By "rolling over", aren't we really just passing the problem to someone else? The aggressor learns nothing from our encounter, and will try the same behavior on someone else. Wouldn't it be better to calmly stand up to the person and check the problem??
I think the whole thread is about finding the best approach to stand up, but without violence (really, anger).
***
DEALING with INSULT....Lord Buddha
The Buddha explained how to handle insult and maintain compassion.
One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others," he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."
Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man "Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?"
The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to me, because I bought the gift."
The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself."
"If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy."
The young man listened closely to these wise words of the Buddha. "You are right, o Enlightened One, "he said. "Please teach me the path of love. I wish to become your follower."
The Buddha answered kindly, "Of course. I teach anyone who truly wants to learn. Come with me."
***
From here.
Apparently this is from the Akkosa Sutta
As far as "passing the problem to someone else," I'm not interested in teaching such people a lesson. I don't feel it is realistic to expect that confronting such people is going to change their behavior. That certainly doesn't accord with my own experience. At one time in my life, I used to go around with that particular chip on my shoulder, but in recent years I've gotten much better results by employing non-confrontational tactics. "Teaching a lesson" to rude people is usually just an excuse for creating a lot of unnecessary drama. As far as I'm concerned, the best lesson I can teach anyone is that drama can usually be defused, or at least not escalated, by refusing to buy into it. Exactly.
Alan
personally I feel the person insulting you is unhappy (as with the quote above) and therefor rather than anger I feel sympathy for their need to insult others to feel better. When you think insults through rationally they are rarely personal, usually being a way of making the insulter feel better than you. Since I feel that each human is equal I do not feel the need to respond, and simply continue with whatever I was doing previously.
"A colleague who had been reading some of my published work told me he was going to comment on it in a book he was writing. I told him that I was delighted that he would do such a thing. Then the axe fell: 'I'm trying to decide,' he said, 'whether, in my response to what you have written, I should characterize you as being evil or merely misguided.'
"There was a time when being insulted in this manner would have upset me. I would have done my best to respond with a counter-insult, and whatever I said, I would subsequently have spent time fuming about the incident and thinking about other, more caustic things I could and should have said. I probably would even have spent time plotting revenge. In other words, I would have allowed the insult to ruin my day.
"In the incident described, though, I did none of these things. This is because I had come under the influence of those ancient philosophers known as the Stoics and had, as a result, decided to follow their advice regarding insults. Consequently, I responded to the insult with a question: 'Why can't you,' I asked, 'characterize me as being both evil and misguided?'"
Alan
I think ignoring is the best method. In the case of Buddha, ignoring an insult is like not receiving the gift. By agreeing, you have still received it. As far as that person going out into the world and insulting others and harassing, I like Pema Chodron's thought of "You can't put leather down all across a hot desert, but you can wrap it around your feet". It's very difficult to fix somebody's attitude, but we can fix ours.
Liao-Fan: Another example is the Lin family from Fukien. Among their ancestors was an old lady who was very generous. Everyday she made rice balls to give to the poor and always gave as many as they asked for.
There was a Taoist monk who came everyday for three years and each time would ask for six or seven rice balls. The old lady always granted his request and never expressed any displeasure. The Taoist monk, who was actually a heavenly being who had come to test the depth of her kind heart, realized the deep sincerity of this woman’s kindness and said…
Taoist Monk: I have eaten your rice balls for three years with nothing to show my gratitude in return. Perhaps I can help you in this way; on the land behind your house, there is a good place where you can build the ancestral grave. If you are placed there in the future, the number of your descendants who will have imperial appointments will be equivalent to the number of seeds in a pound of sesame seeds.
Liao-Fan: When the old lady passed away, the Lin family followed the heavenly being’s suggestion and buried her at the designated place. The first generation after that, nine men passed the imperial exams and it continued that way for every succeeding generation.
http://www.buddhanet.net/l3lesson.htm
Alan
I also get whatever lesson I may gain from the encounter to improve myself. If a person insults me intentionally, I look back and evaluate my actions. I may have been offensive to this person without me knowing it. It’s harder if the insult is unintentional (for me) but most of the time I just let it pass in one ear and out on the other.
When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
When someone I have benefited
And in whom I have placed great trust
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.
How does one deal with a barking dog?
One remembers that it is always the frightened dog that barks the loudest, and so one allows such insults to fall to the earth about one's feet while carefully observing and examining the dog's fears behind his loud bark.
Carefully observe the dog's fears.
Do not make the dog's fears your own.