Today, let’s talk about patient acceptance. It is a fascinating topic as you will discover. If you think about it acceptance has its root in patience and rejection has its root in anger. So in a way, this is a discussion about anger vs. patience.
A patient mind is an immensely creative and flexible mind. But before we can be creative and flexible with any situation, we find ourselves in, we have to accept it first. We can’t come out fighting. Because effectively what we’re doing is fighting reality.
Because things are happening the way they are whether we accept them or not. Say your car broke down. No point getting angry about it. We have to accept the fact that the car broke down. Then we can do something about it. So I need to accept that without getting freaked out. Happily, peacefully, then I can do something about it. So patience is not about doing nothing.
Being patient means welcoming wholeheartedly, whatever arises and not giving up the idea that things should be other than what they are. Because the point is, that things are not other than what they are. If they were other than what they are then fine, but they’re not whatever is appearing to our mind is just the way it is at the moment. So we have to accept happily.
The flip side of this is that we don’t accept what is happening. Usually, when we don’t accept what is happening, anger comes into play.
The thing with anger is that it exaggerates. Anger has a tendency to make the mountain out of molehill. If we get angry with our partner, for example, or our friend or anyone, we basically build up an image of an intrinsically faulty person, we basically focus on everything that’s wrong with them. And we forget about anything that is good about them, including any kindnesses they may have performed towards us or others.
Geshe-la says every opportunity to get angry is also an opportunity to develop patience. Think about it. Last time you were mindful and watching your thoughts and when the anger was about to raise its ugly head, you tame it right in its tracks. You thought things through, you forgave, you let it go, and so forth. You were able to patiently accept what was instead of what could have been! When that happened you were at peace. Now the trick is to do this every time! I know it’s difficult but you know it is possible.
Now let’s be clear, this is not about suppressing anger because that just becomes passive aggression at some point. And we won’t be able to catch the anger train coming up every time. And if that happens, once the anger has arisen and taken over our mind, you kind of just have to let it pass. There’s not much you can do. Maybe hiding your room or something. I find that exercise tends to help in that case at least for me.
But the real remedy is to stop the anger train before it leaves the station if you will.
And what they say about habits is that if you do something 40 times, it becomes a habit. So you can think okay, next 40 difficult situations and annoying people that come up in my life over the next weeks. So I’m going to try and practice patience 40 times, it’s just an idea. I’m just going to try and practice patience with this person in the situation 40 times and see if my habits change. See if my go-to mind becomes that of patience instead of that of anger. How wonderful!
So that we start to feel like a happier person. When we’re happy, we don’t get angry. Or if we do, then the happiness goes. So generally, if we are able to make ourselves happy, and we’re able to stay calm, contented and peaceful, and basically happy, then, dealing with anger is going to be far easier, it’s not going to rise nearly as often. When it starts in our minds, we’re able to deal with them a lot more easily. Because we’re basically happy. We see actually, I like being happy. I like being happy, and I don’t want to get angry and upset right now. Because I actually prefer to be happy. So we need to know methods to make ourselves happy. And to be able to stay peaceful. Whenever we have love for others when we’re enjoying others when we have compassion.
So one way to be happier within ourselves is to just allow our mind to settle into its own peaceful nature as often as we can even through simple breathing meditation, our mind starts to feel more peaceful. In our hearts, we start to feel more balanced, more peaceful, more contented, and happier. And as I’ve said many times, at that point, it’s very very helpful to think, Okay, I’m actually naturally peaceful, not naturally angry. Even if you have a very strong habit of irritation, annoyance, passive aggression, aggression, anger doesn’t matter. That’s not who you are, that’s still just the delusion of anger. It’s the dirt on your golden nugget if you will. We have talked about this before. Deep down all of us are like this golden nugget, naturally peaceful. But because that nugget is surrounded by the dirt of delusion, we are not able to see the real nature of ourselves. We find ourselves as anything but a naturally peaceful person.
We think actually who I am is a peaceful, happy person. And try and identify with that sense of self because that helps. Well, that allows you really to keep that peaceful feeling going.