A good Buddhist quote on how annoying people can turn into bitter enemies, and how Buddhism uses the “tea boy” analogy to keep your enemies as close as you can.

“The story goes that Atisha was told that the people of Tibet were very good natured, earthly, flexible, and open; he decided they wouldn’t be irritating enough to push his buttons. So he brought along with him his mean-tempered, ornery Bengali tea boy. He felt that this was the only way he could stay awake….In our own lives, the Bengali tea boys are the people who, when you let them through the front door of your house, go right down to the basement where you store lots of things you’d rather not deal with, pick out one of them , and say ‘Is this yours?’

“Usually what you do is to get everybody else on your team. You sit around and talk about what a creep this person is who confronted you. If the disagreement happens to be in the realm of politics or “isms” of any kind, you get a banner on which you write how right you are and how wrong this other person is. By this time the other person has got a team, too, and then you have race riots and World War III.”

-Shambhala Acharya Pema Chodron
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