Masters and Grand Masters
Shambhala Masters‘ Guidelines For Co-Existing With People (and Maintaining Your Sanity)
- Keep your expectations of people very low. When you think your expectations are low … you have not begun to set them low enough.
- Expect the worst. Do not get down on yourself when people exceed your worst expectations.
- Do not underestimate peoples’ capacity to amuse themselves with their own destructiveness. They have no regard for the long-term consequences of their behavior.
- Do not take personally their drive to sabotage themselves and you. They have little, to no, control over their behavior.
- Do not underestimate their capacity to indulge in fears, culturally driven desires, social escapes, diversions, and pastimes. To underestimate their capacity will only drive you to distraction.
- Shield yourself from their fears and preoccupations. They are highly infectious.
- Keep your exposure to their verbiage, exchange of sound bites, debates, pontificating and storytelling to a minimum. Look at your watch and have plenty of other things to do and other places to go.
- Accept their confounding behavior as a given. Trying to understand them will jeopardize your sanity.
- Remain detached and highly observant. Use your third eye, then their antics will become mildly amusing, though at times, a bit too much like watching a horror show.
- Avoid emotional and financial entanglement with them. They will gleefully take you down.
- Closely monitor the consequences of your extensions of time and energy to others. Make sure your extensions are for your own immediate, self-gratifying pleasure, and be highly suspicious of a lack of equal outreaches from others in your direction.
- Do not fall in love with their potential and the picture of what you think you could be together. They are all diamonds in the rough. Before priding yourself on being a diamond cutter, remember diamonds are one of the hardest known substances and they usually have many flaws.
- When you feel like stepping in … step back. Let these diamonds in the rough shape each other while you use your energy to work on your rough edges and making your life good for yourself.
- Be ever vigilant to train and housebreak people (including children) when they enter your presence, your home or your Martial Arts Center. Take charge of them when they are in your territory or they will take charge of you. Speak clearly to your needs. Keep your requests simple. Set clear consequences for not honoring your requests. Consistently follow through with the consequences you have set. Protect yourself and your loved ones by limiting your exposure to those who do not act in accordance with your requests.
- Do not linger in hostile territory. If you do not feel like you are being affirmed … you am not.
- Do not be surprised when people occasionally touch your heart and make you smile. Enjoy it! And anticipate their speedy whiplash back into their destructive extremes. Enjoy their moments of lucidity, charm and warmth … knowing it will quickly pass.
