Yes. And if you actually try to do it in your life, it will become somewhat hard to live it, which is good practice. The rule is simple: never use your emotional pain, suffering or inconvenience as an excuse to deliberately inflict actual pain, suffering or inconvenience upon other people. That’s basically ego’s favorite game to play and that’s the source of almost all physical violence in the world. In other words, take full responsibility for your emotional experience and never blame other people for it.

A self-described monk and mystic who shall remain nameless provided the following example:

The Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn told an interesting story one day. It was a Zen story. A young man was riding on the subway. Sitting under one of the many “No Smoking” signs, he lit up and began smoking a big cigar. It was a particularly smelly cigar and soon the subway car was filled its smoke. He blew smoke into the faces of the two old ladies sitting next to him. An old man standing nearby asked him to please stop and put out the cigar. He laughed and said, “I’m enlightened, old man. I’m free. I can do anything I want and I want to smoke this cigar.” And he blew a puff of smoke into the old man’s face as if to demonstrate his great freedom.

The old man quickly punched the young man in the face breaking both the cigar and his nose. The young man screamed, “Why did you do that? You broke my nose. What’s wrong with you?” The old man replied, “I’m free too. And what I wanted to do was punch your face.”

Perhaps the old man was a Zen Master too.

Sounds so wise, so insightful, right? Wrong. It’s cruelty masquerading as wisdom. Most “masters” have no clue what true love is.

In this example, both men acted out egoically. Cigar smoke is an actual inconvenience, it’s not a psychological one. It’s smell and pollution in the air, not hurt feelings. The young man was being a total ass. Breaking his nose was most definitely not a response to the actual inconvenience of the cigar smoke, it was a response to the perceived insult and arrogance of his laughter. So whereas the confused monk sees some lesson to be learned from this example, I see two insecure teenagers trying to figure out who’s “freer” than whom by physically dominating each other. I see stupidity from both sides.

Psychological pain and suffering is another matter entirely. Any completely enlightened being knows that it is, strictly speaking, impossible to reduce psychological suffering in another person. It is not something that can theoretically happen. You can only cater to it but you cannot reduce it, with any amount of love and acceptance. So, trying not to arise any psychological suffering in others is not an enlightened activity, it is something an enlightened person needs to do, practically, so that other people won’t lash out at him desiring to inflict actual damage as a response to perceived damage to their self-image, as well as in the context of cooperating with them, working together or doing something together.

If the context of the interaction is not teaching, there is never a need to deliberately inflict any psychological suffering. For what reason? But it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Enlightened aren’t clairvoyant, they don’t know your weak spots, they themselves don’t have any, so a simple truthful conversation with them may very possibly create a psychological disturbance in you. Egoic sensitivity to truth often times leads to people demanding others to walk around them on eggshells, and this is not a sign of others being assholes, it’s a sign of unresolved internal trauma. If speaking to another person brings you discomfort - disengage, no one is making you, don’t lash out in acts of vengeance. Exercise your freedom. Words aren’t fists.

In the context of teaching, there is no cooperation and there cannot be, because ego wants to feel connected, soothed and validated. Showering people with unconditional love and acceptance can make them hooked on you, sure, but any enlightened person knows that that’s not what the journey ultimately is about and authentic growth is only possible through emotional pain. So there will be pain.

Thus, in my experience the best method is to respond with acceptance and love to those in struggle, and with psychological pain to those in arrogance. Which is, I believe, the same reason the monk likes his example, he is just a little confused about the difference between actual and psychological. His example is just easier to relate to for most people since we are accustomed to responding with actual aggression to psychological pain, so it is cheered. But there is nothing to cheer for in this story for me, I see senseless violence. If I were to break someone’s nose for inflicting a rather minor inconvenience of tobacco smoke on me, I would at the very least give the person a fair warning. Physically removing them from the area would also be a much more appropriate response. I could grab his cigar and throw it away, too.

The biggest problem with egoic confusion is that ego cannot see when it is actively trying to invoke pain upon other people, it loves to think they deserve it. Especially if it’s a “good”, “loving”, “wise” or, God forbid, “enlightened” ego. Then it will think it teaches them a lesson. So truly enlightened ones are very frequently perceived as assholes by spiritual people, because spiritual people are still assholes themselves. And that includes monks and mystics.