That's one technique to do in your Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation. We could try that. This is a reason why we keep the phrase exactly the same, so that your wish is a universal wish you can do it for anybody; your loved ones, your parents, your husband/wife, or for Saddam Hussein. You're wishing for them to be able to end Dukkha in their life, that they find the tools, whatever words you want to use, so they can find peace of mind.
Now if you have exactly the same wish, you will be able to see for yourself whether or not you are developing more Compassion/Lovingkindness with difficult people. The way that this happens is similar to this. While doing Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation, you're reflecting about of your loved ones, and you wish, "May so and so... find peace of mind. May so and so... find peace of mind", etc. While reflecting about your loved ones, the wish flows very nicely and easily.
Try changing the focus to difficult people, and you might notice resistance arising so the wish becomes a little like this, "May
I mentioned about Saddam a minute ago, it's a mess over there right? Now, good, bad or ugly, whatever the mess is, he had a chance not to be in that mess, but his attachment to fame was too great compared to attachment to just being alive and living on an island in the Mediterranean somewhere.
Can we open our heart to the ignorance that's behind every difficult person that we meet? Ignorance is behind all of us too, right? None of you are fully enlightened yet. Right? So we have ignorance in the mind, and difficult people have ignorance in the mind. We have to reflect more about that, it's not so much a matter of us wishing that they're going to change, because often they never will change, it's more a matter that we have to change, we have to open the heart to them, to the ignorance that's in there.
Daily life, yes, we meet difficult people all the time. If you react angrily to the difficult people, what happens? Is it their difficult behavior that creates the problem or is it your reaction of being angry at them that creates more of a problem? If they're already having Dukkha from their ignorance, if we get angry at them we join them in their Dukkha. So we need compassion for ourselves.
This doesn't mean that we invite difficult people into our house although sometimes they are our relatives and there are times we can't choose. But at other times we can draw a boundary.
I think it was in the last newsletter where we wrote about drawing boundaries with some people. If people, due to their ignorance, are heaping their Dukkha onto us in unkind, unfavorable ways, then we say "no," and draw the line. Keep in mind that compassion, like Rosemary says at the end of every retreat, has many different facets, like a multi-faceted diamond. Keep that in mind, too, that sometimes the way to deal with difficult people is to say "no."
This is exactly why police systems and the courts have been set up, to stop difficult people creating harm and problems for others. So sometimes we need to be show the softer face of compassion and sometimes we have show the firmer face of compassion. It is the intention that's important. We try to give them a Compassion/Lovingkindness wish, no matter if we're soft or strong.