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Talk Notes
Today, I want to talk to you about the 3rd Paramita— “Patience.” We’ve started sharing about the 6 Paramitas in our Sunday programs; Raizelah spoke of the 1st last week, on Generosity. As you may recall, the 6 Paramitas are the foundation of the Mahayana Buddhist Path, the Bodhisattva Path. They are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, diligence, (sometimes known as energetic joy) meditation, and wisdom. These virtues are sometimes called transcendent because the subject, object and practice of the perfections are seen as empty and free of a separate self. The 6 paramitas are considered essential qualities to cultivate on one’s path to awakening. They act as a roadmap for a meaningful and purposeful life.
I would like to share with you a bit of my own long journey—of transforming the underlying roots of impatience and anger into places of stillness and beauty.
I will be sharing some quotes from the Buddha and translations of words in the ancient Pali language throughout this talk from Gil Frondsdal (a wonderful teacher and scholar in the Vipassana lineage.)
This first quote is this—from the Buddha: “Of all the things accomplished in your life, you’ll find nothing more beautiful than patience.”
Patience? Beautiful? Really? I would cringe before that word for many years. But now, as a hear that statement, I see the truth in it. As I continue my path of practice, I see the truth—and, more importantly, I feel the effect in my body and heart. Incidentally, it doesn’t mean that once a felt this truth, I was instantly transformed forever. Transforming these engrained patterns is an ongoing moment by moment practice I’m afraid—but I’m finding that practice is worth the effort.
So, I’ve had two words in my life that evoked, “recoiling and denial”—and those two words were—"patience and anger.” I see now how these two qualities often ruled my life.
As the years unfolded in my life, impatience was just right there on surface of everything. I now see many conditions which promoted my impatience. It stemmed from many physical challenges and limitations, as well as complicated self-care—as well as emotional ones. And anger, always its constant companion—just below the surface. Even after years of Buddhist practice, I remember the first time I read the title of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Anger” I dismissed it instantly—feeling that I was “in control” and I “didn’t have a problem” with anger; it had nothing to do with me!
It was like the time in a Yoga Class when the teacher invited us to really dig deeply and find those knots buried at the core. Same response! No! I don’t have any knots in there! But, instead of dismissing it instantly, I was instructed to stay with it, digging for a while. I will never forget the feeling—the surprise—of finding deep, deep knots within my gut that were so buried, I didn’t even know that they were there. I can’t remember exactly how I started acknowledging my anger, but slowly I started allowing myself to admit that it was a lifelong habit energy.
Every time I feel impatience, it is an instant red flag that I am not accepting reality. I am not accepting the way things really are in that moment—I am wanting things to be different somehow, whether that is to be quicker, to be smoother, to be easier, to be less painful…I put up a resistance to things, often before I even know it. These situations can be occurring right here in my own life—things inevitably not going smoothly, even if it is as simple as hurriedly dropping things on the floor, or being part of a major traffic jam on the way to Bellingham! Or, they can be happening not directly to me…in other places, major happenings and horrific events that we currently find ourselves in, watching the suffering of other humans and other species…I saw a short video the other day from a teacher at Plum Village talking about suffering who said something like, “do you think you avoid suffering by turning away from the suffering of the world? You think you won’t feel it? You think you don’t already feel it? In every pore of your body?...” No matter how great or small, first we need to acknowledge what is happening.
So, impatience and anger can occur as a way of covering up my suffering—as a way of not looking at the underlying feeling of lost control, perhaps, or inadequacy, or wishing things were different, in a deeper and more prolonged way. Much of my personal impatience early on came from frustration around my physical limitations, especially growing up. It was painful to be different, to be less able to smoothly get around, less able to do things that everyone else was doing. It was the bubbling up of a sadness and resistance that I suppressed from myself. I told myself I didn’t miss or want to be like everyone else, to have a normal body, like others, but, in truth, of course I missed this everyday, and, although I did know that it would never happen, I couldn’t come to grips with the injustice of it. I think I felt a self-pity of sorts, but I didn’t allow myself to be tender, to feel grief. I was staunch in my outward stance of not needing anyone, and ability to “do it myself!”
Even as I established an ability to be more patient with things, I looked at it as a way of “enduring the situation.” I want to talk about this more. Again, from the talk I heard by Gil, he talks about just this; how we often seem to equate patience with endurance. (Perhaps this is more common in the Western world.) This really struck me. He said that the direct translation from Pali gives a much different flavor of the word patience. I think he’s right. In our culture, it truly does have a meaning that often portrays “endurance”. And, sometimes, patience is just endurance. But this is not the same as the patience in Pali apparently. This word Shanti—pronounced, “Kanti” has a much more spiritual meaning, a strong welcoming association, a feeling of openness and seems to include the feeling of “metta” or loving kindness.
I now see that what I’d been missing for so long, was an underlying, fundamental way of including this loving kindness, this gentleness. In all those years, I wasn’t able to give myself gentleness; and there was always an undercurrent of anger in my very being. Whether I realized it or not, even in my interactions with others, this was a component. I realized one day, that even when I petted my beloved dog, he wasn’t completely at ease; he sensed this bit of anger or aggression even though I thought I was just offering love. I was astounded. I consciously brought my awareness to this in a deep way and discovered, yes, that component was in there, that undercurrent of anger. And I also discovered bit by bit what was missing! Patience must include self love. It was an eye opening experience for me!
On another note, this morning as I was offering a treat to my dog, Oscar, I noticed that I often get him to stop being overly impatient; barking, etc. by having him “sit” and stop barking—to get him to be more “patient.” But, what I can see is that he is totally just enduring my request that he stop. He was not feeling the peace and ease, the beautiful place of patience, in that Buddhist sense of the word—no, he was just “enduring” my instructions long enough to get his treat. Lol. So, this is a very different feel from what the Buddha was conveying in the Buddhist meaning of patience.
When the Buddha was giving a lecture to his son, Rahula, he advised Rahula to cultivate his practice as if it were the earth, which, apparently, is the root of the word Shanti. It signifies stability and ability to hold. He said that “pleasing” and “unpleasing” will not take hold of your mind and remain there. I had a thought that impatience is an outcome of not having enough confidence to hold what is. I remember once when I was in Dokusan with a previous teacher, I told him that I was fearful that I didn’t have the capacity to “hold” suffering. He said, “well, you’re holding it right now, aren’t you?” So, yes, I think impatience also includes this lack of confidence in my own, deeper, true nature. As I practice, I see that this confidence in myself also allows for more patience; I increasingly trust that I can do this, that I can hold my suffering and the suffering of the world.
Patience is the ability to just be with what is. Not wishing for something else, not wanting to rush through it.
In my root tradition, there are many little verses which we can recall, to help us with our mindfulness. One of these, I brought up for myself, was the name of Thich Nhat Hanh’s book on Lin Chi and it was, “Nothing to Do, No Where to Go.” This has been very helpful for me in terms of impatience in getting somewhere else, or doing something other than what I was in the midst of. Saying this really allows me to take a breath, and just return. It helps my mind not jump to the future, but just return to now.
Another life tool that I consciously use is what I call giving myself enough “white space.” I know that I develop anxiety around not having enough time or feeling that I don’t have enough time. I have a couple friends in particular who crowd their schedule with events and like it that way—or think they like it that way. They do acknowledge that perhaps this is just a way of avoidance; not allowing themselves to be with their inner life, and this could be. For myself, I try hard to have “open” time. It does feel more at ease, when I have time to just sit. If I have too many things on the agenda week to week, I get into a state where I am not at ease, and even if I truly do have enough time, my mind feels that I don’t. But this brings up another and perhaps more important issue. I notice that I can start fretting about a future event coming up, whether I have plenty of time to prepare or not. I then catch myself occupying this state and using up unneeded energy towards it. The key, again, is to just come back to the present. If I am truly living in the present, each moment, without jumping to the future, I have plenty of time; things always work out! Just one thing at a time, or, as Sojun Mel Weitsman said, “just seeing one thing through…”
Mindfulness is a state to be cultivated. I want to ask my body and my heart how they are feeling when I am in these different states. How do I feel when I’m inpatient? How do I feel when I’m caught in a state of anger? I can remember to ask myself these questions now as I am moving into that state…or perhaps before I get there. When I catch myself in a state of impatience, and then stop—and move into a state of just being with where I am, allowing whatever is there to be allowed, how does this change how my body feels? How does this differ from putting up the gates?
The most truthful indicator of how these different states affect me, are these body and heart feelings.
What I find is a stark contrast between impatience and anger, and patience and ease. Just think of what happens in your own body with anger. There is an instant constriction, tightening, fiery emotion. I see how exhausting it is—and has been—this sense of gripping onto whatever it is that I think I need to have control over. Contrast this with a letting go, the realization that I have nothing to do at that moment. If I’m in the midst of holding tightly to a story that I think I need to share, and I remember, ah! —I can just let go of this, oh! What a free feeling! And, the more I do this, the more freeing it feels!
It feels so spacious and large when I let go of my impatience and anger and just allow. I think this is in part what is described as the 6 Paramitas—“these virtues are sometimes called transcendent because the subject, object and practice of the perfections are seen as empty and free of a separate self.”
In a moment of letting go, a moment of ease just being with the present, we lose the grasp of self, even if it’s just a short time.
The more our awareness practice repeats itself, over and over, we start to develop a different road map and the easier it is to get there more quickly. As Gil says, “the cleaner the cloth, the more quickly we can see the stain.” When we are so full of our habit energies and our cloth is so stained with our many erroneous actions, we have a harder time seeing each one. But, when things are brighter and clearer, it is true, that we have an easier time picking up on these seeds that arise to create suffering. So, if we’re asking, “but how do I catch myself before I get impatient and open my mouth and say something I regret?” It’s not by hoping I’ll just be able to do this magically; it’s by really looking deeply at myself and my life and getting to know how and why I do this. It’s really by revisiting these old habits over and over until I have clarity in the choices I hold; experiencing what states diminish me and what states nourish me. As I mentioned, being patient is often about not necessarily feeling the need to share “my story” as others are telling theirs. Being patient is just allowing others to share their story without me sharing mine. As my teacher says, “it’s their experience, just let them express it…” I was listening to a talk the other day where the speaker was describing his experience at a very important meeting with a room full of policy makers. He was eager to share his thoughts and contribute his knowledge and wisdom. As he sat with this desire while waiting for his turn, he realized that it was more about displaying his intelligence, his brilliance, than it was about truly contributing to the situation with a desire to be of benefit. Of course this happens to us all. As I think of this right now, I see how Patience, also includes the 1st Paramita—Generosity. An offering of patience includes an act of generosity. I think Junka Ken will be speaking more about how these Paramitas include each other in an upcoming talk.
The ancient Buddhist tradition of patience has three aspects, which I’ve rearranged a bit:
1) Acceptance of the truth; I think this is the fundamental necessary component in letting go of impatience. As I said before, impatience is just a reflection of not being able to accept reality as it is—in that moment, in that particular circumstance.
2) General perseverance: I think this comes from an ability to have confidence in our own Buddha nature, our own wide ability and spaciousness
3) Having patience under insult or conflict: This does not mean condoning other actions, but rather having a confidence, like the earth, to maintain patience and loving kindness in bearing witness or taking any kind of action.
And now, increasingly often, I do live many moments in the beautiful field of patience. I see that a fundamental beauty of this kind of patience, the patience that the Buddha was referring to—is loving kindness. Loving kindness and gentleness—especially for myself. I understand that I can’t extend that loving kindness out to the wider world without it.
So, thank you all so much for joining me today!
Note for break out discussion:
1) What is the difference between patience as “just enduring the situation” and patience as “living in beauty and loving kindness”
2) Think of a time when you were so impatient or angry with something. Recall the feeling in your body—heart. Now, imagine letting it go…imagine returning to just being in the present. What is the difference? What does it feel like to just let go of your resistance, your anxiety, your anger—no matter “who’s fault it was”—how is that feeling now in your body/heart?
