I told you that to "Put yourself in your opponent’s place" means to "move into action" in last weeks weblog. And it is not just an idea. I have received a great response from many people. And they all wanted to know how to apply this in their daily life. Therefore, I will tell you more about how to "put yourself in your opponent’s place".
The specific action of "putting yourself in your opponent’s place" is to understand and know your opponent.
I am sure that you know some people whom you think are disagreeable individuals. If a person says something negative, or is unconcerned about you, or steps on your goodwill, you will not want to be around this person. If you do not have to socialize with this person, you might not need to see them, but most of the time, these disagreeable individuals are your boss or your neighbors, and you cannot escape from interacting with them in your daily life.
It tends to be very stressful if we have to spend time with disagreeable people. We will do our best to spend less time with these people. We even try not to speak to them. However, this is the best way to make human relations worse, because avoidance means not sending Ki to the other person. And this means a definite breakdown in communication. As a result, it will become very difficult for you to understand the disagreeable personﾕs mind. If you do not send Ki to this person, then you cannot realize anything about them.
However, instead, we can apply the principle of "Putting yourself in your opponent’s place".
It is important to send Ki to another even if you do not like that person. The specific action is to know the person by sending Ki. By sending Ki, we can know the person’s background, their beliefs, and their state of mind. If you understand these things, you will naturally understand why the person says or acts a certain way.
Once you start to understand the person, you will have breadth of mind even if that person has not changed. In other words, this does not mean to change the other person, but to change yourself. As a result of this change in yourself, the personﾕs mind and actions will become plus gradually. I have seen many cases like this. This is one example of the Universal mind.
Let’s confirm the point which is easy to misunderstand.
First, "change yourself" does not mean that you start to love a minus thing. The real meaning is to accept the minus and change it into plus. If you feel minus is plus, it is a problem.
Second, even if you do your best to understand the disagreeable individual, but the person never changes, you can choose not to go out with the person. If you know this, you will be able to have breadth of mind and you can always make your best effort.
Let’s practice together.
