"Even though when you are angry at someone you might feel that the person has no positive qualities, the reality is that nobody is 100 percent bad. ... The tendency to see someone as completely negative is due to your own perception based on your own mental projection, rather than the true nature of that individual." [page 176] Cutler tries this idea out on a difficult former boss. "It wasn't hard. I knew him to be a loving father, for instance. ... And I had to admit that my run-ins with him had ultimately benefited me -- they had been instrumental in my decision to quit working at that facility, which ultimately led to more satisfying work. While these reflections didn't immediately result in an overwhelming liking for this man, they unquestionably took the bite out of my feelings of hatred with surprisingly little effort." [page 177]
"In Buddhism in general, a lot of attention is paid to our attitudes towards our rivals or enemies. This is because hatred can be the greatest stumbling block to the development of compassion and happiness. If you can learn to develop patience and tolerance towards your enemies, then everything else becomes much easier -- your compassion towards all others begins to flow naturally. ... From this standpoint we can consider our enemy as a great teacher, and revere them for giving us this precious opportunity to practice patience. ... Just as having unexpectedly found a treasure in your own house, you should be happy and grateful towards your enemy for providing that precious opportunity." [pages 178-179] This is not totally foreign to Western thought. In the award winning science fiction novel Ender's Game, for example, one of Ender's trainers says "There is no teacher but the enemy."
Flexibility of mind is important for more than just individual psychology. "Of course, change must come from within the individual. But when you are seeking solutions to global problems, you need to be able to approach these problems from the standpoint of the individual as well as from the level of society at large. So, when you're talking about being flexible, about having a wider perspective and so on, this requires the ability to address problems from various levels: the individual level, the community level, and the global level." [page 189]
"Higher stages of growth and development depend on an underlying set of values that can guide us. ... The question is how can we consistently and steadfastly maintain this set of underlying values and yet remain flexible? The Dalai Lama has seemed to achieve this by first reducing his belief system to a few fundamental facts. ... It is the ability to reduce our value system to its most basic elements, and live from that vantage point, that allows us the greatest freedom and flexibility to deal with the vast array of problems that confront us on a daily basis." [pages 192-193]
The chapter ends with a discussion of balance. The Dalai Lama presents a view of Buddhist practices that seems to imply that they are not good in themselves, but they are good relative to where you are when you do them. "For instance, if we find ourselves becoming arrogant ... then the antidote is to think more about one's own problems and suffering, contemplating the unsatisfactory aspects of existence. And on the contrary, if you find that reflecting on the unsatisfactory nature of existence, suffering and pain and so forth, makes you feel quite overwhelmed by the whole thing, then ... it's important to be able to uplift your mind by reflecting on your achievements, the progress that you've made so far, and your other positive qualities." [page 194]