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| Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche |
(From "The Heart of Compassion"):
Someone exposes my hidden faults with insulting language,
To bow to him respectfully,
Regarding him as a spiritual friend, is the practice of a bodhisattva.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: If you want to be a genuine follower of the Buddha, never retaliate when you are harmed. Always remember the four principles of positive training, which are:
1) if someone abuses you, do not abuse him in return;
2) if someone gets angry with you, do not get angry with him in return;
3) if someone exposes your hidden faults, do not expose his in return; and
4) if someone strikes you, do not strike him back.
If someone criticizes you, picking on your most sensitive points, or angrily insults you with the most offensive language, do not return like for like, no matter how difficult it is to bear.
Practice patience, and never give way to anger. Take it positively, and use it as a chance to let go of your own pride.
Practice generosity and compassion by giving victory to others and being happy to lose. Allowing others to win is a characteristic of all Buddhist paths. In fact, what is there to be won or lost?
From an absolute viewpoint, there is not the slightest difference between winning and losing. Many Buddhist teachers were abused, treated as criminals, and beaten when the Chinese communists came to Tibet. Instead of feeling hatred, they prayed that the negative actions of all beings would be purified through vindictive attacks against them.
Like them, when you are insulted and humiliated, pray that using the connection you have established with those insulting you, you may be able to bring them all to liberation.
There should be no insult or humiliation that is too great for you to bear. If you were ever to feel it was justifiable to respond vindictively, the exchange of bitter words and recriminations that ensue would be bound to inflame and escalate the anger on both sides.
This is how people start to fight and kill each other. Murders and wars all begin with just one angry thought. As Shantideva says,
No austerity to be compared with patience.
Never give way to anger, therefore. Be patient - and, moreover, be grateful to someone who humiliates you, as they are giving you a precious opportunity to strengthen your understanding and practice of bodhicitta.
The great Jigme Lingpa said:
Is a catalyst for your meditation;
Insulting reproaches you don't deserve
Spur your practice onwards;
Those who do you harm are teachers
Challenging your attachment and aversion-
How could you ever repay their kindness?
Indeed, you are unlikely to make much spiritual progress if you lack the courage to face your own hidden faults. Any person or situation that helps you to see those faults, however uncomfortable and humiliating it may be, is doing you a great service.
As Lord Atisha says,
The best instructions are the ones that hit your hidden faults.
The best incentives are enemies, obstacles and the suffering of illness.
And the Kadampa master Shawopa used to warn his disciples as they came to see him, saying, "I only show people their hidden defects. If you can avoid getting annoyed, stay; but if not, go away!"
Of the eight ordinary concerns, therefore, even from the relative point of view there are many ways of eliminating the distinction between the good and bad, those you want to happen and those you do not.
From the point of view of absolute truth, there is not the slightest difference between gain and loss, pleasure and pain, fame and disgrace, praise and disparagement. They are all equal, all empty by nature.
As Shantideva says,
What is there to gain, and what to lose?
Who is there to pay me court and honors,
And who is there to scorn and to revile me?
Pain and pleasure, whence do these arise?
And what is there to give me joy and sorrow?
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