His Holiness the Dalai Lama is more impressive every time I look into his work. These 1981 quotes offer a vision of forgiveness that is purer than anything I have ever heard.

The people we have a hard time with at work have typically not been treated as “precious treasure” too often, in the Dalai Lama’s words. We are probably not suffering from an over-abundance of that ourselves, but workplace politics can be greatly improved if we take an activist stance towards the environment there. If we infuse our work relationships with respect, humor and warmth we create a good working environment for ourselves.  We make our moment to moment work experience better.

People will respond sometimes with betrayals, coldness, ugliness.  That is where the Dalai Lama’s wisdom is crucial.  We all grew up with too much coldness, betrayal and ugliness in our lives, and it’s going to creep out.  Countering that with warmth and generosity can heal the coldness, and prevent betrayals. Supporting ourselves with great relationships in our lives gives us the strength to face betrayals and tensions. This subject is obviously far more complicated, so if this is an issue currently in your work speak with us for a detailed response to your particular situation. Another recent inspiration on this topic was Morgan Freeman’s performance in Invictus.

Freeman, playing Mandela, truly greeted a white South African woman who came to his office with the afternoon tea as a ‘precious treasure.’ Such great charm and kindness can overcome any politics, and made him the last African leader whose influence could pervade that whole continent.

The movie was also valuable in offering a picture of how Mandela used poetry to maintain his vision and generosity of character.

(A brilliant set of conversations between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman that explores forgiveness, hostility, relationships et al, are in the book Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Emotional Balance and Compassion.)