patience

Patient Acceptance

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.

Going With The Flow

Let’s talk about going with the flow today. As we all know, life is a flow. Life keeps changing all the time. It’s like a mountain stream running all the time. Its nature is to flow. Sometimes it feels as if we barely get out footing and all of a sudden the ground is shifting beneath us.

We try so hard to keep things the same. I think human beings like familiarity. We resist change. Our brain is wired for familiarity bias. We would rather accept known pain than unknown pleasure! The reason for this is that the pain of loss is usually a lot greater than the pleasure of gain. Give an example of people staying in toxic job.

Even then, life keeps changing. It changes from moment to moment.

Look outside. Look at the flowers, the trees. A hailstorm comes and all of that is gone in an instant. Example of a 100 year old tree uprooted on University Blvd.

Has anyone heard of the phrase Managed Growth? It’s a term that was in fashion 15 years ago. In reality, there is no such thing. Either you grow or you shrink. There is no other option.

Examples of IBM, Blockbuster

We always try to fix things because we don’t like the flow of life. As soon as we fix something to our liking, something else breaks though or so it seems. That is what Buddha calls impermanence.

One moment gives rise to the next moment and the moment after that and so forth. So if you think about it, there are no things per se. Because things would imply a sort of permeance and everything keeps changing moment by moment. By that thought process, everything is an event.

Someone would say, well our body is a thing. Is it really though? It keeps changing. Your body is not what it was 10 years ago for sure. Sometimes changes are so subtle that it looks like it is not changing. Well, not in my case! My weight scale tells me it is going up every day!

In Buddhism, it is called a functioning thing. As opposed to a thing that may be static.

For example, take a seedling. Its function is to create a sprout. And then it goes out of existence. There is no seed anymore.

And the sprout becomes a sapling and goes out of existence and so on.

This means everything is an event. Everything is always in the nature of change.

We have to learn to accept and go with it, adapt to it.

Why is this important? The Sooner we accept the fact that Change Is the Only Constant, the more adept we will become.

If we accept that change is part of nature, we will not try to force things, we will try and accept things as they come, this, in turn, will reduce our anxieties, and stress because we are no longer fighting against the flow.

If we fight against change in our minds and in our hearts, we are going to lose because impermanence is the reality.

Not one of us wants to be unhappy. If we all want a happy life then our only option is to go with the flow. We can call it patience, resilience, grace under fire, and whatnot. It is a way to stay peaceful, calm, and accepting no matter what life throws at us.

If good things happen, we are happy; if bad things happen, we accept them happily.

The only way to be happy is to stop being unhappy. Does that make sense?

We are unhappy because we don’t accept what is going on in our lives. We are fighting. We are trying to fix things. We are trying to build these dams in the flow of the river called life.

This is where the practice of patient acceptance is so important. It is the ability to accept wholeheartedly. We accept it as it appears without wishing it to be otherwise.

Let’s look at an example. Say you want to go for a hike. You prepare for your hike, load up the car and start driving. You drive for two hours and all of a sudden there are thunderstorms. If we get unhappy that it is raining, it would ruin our day. Instead, you accept that it is raining. We can pull out an umbrella to protect us from the rain.

And you can use this example for anything else that may be going on in our world. If we don’t like injustice in our society, bring out the umbrella, meaning act to help people and solve problems, but don’t let it disturb your inner peace.

We started discussing the six perfections in detail last week with the perfection of moral discipline. I thought we would talk about one of the other perfections—patience today. Now if you talk to anyone who knows me, they would tell you, I am the least qualified person to talk about patience! So today is the “let’s do what the teacher says and not what he does” kind of lesson!

In “The Boddhisattva Vow” Geshe Kelsang Gyatso defines patience as a virtuous mind that is able to bear harm, suffering, or profound Dharma. Patience is useful whether we are interested in spiritual growth or not. You see, without patience, we are prone to anxiety, frustration, and disquiet. If we lack patience, it is difficult for us to maintain a relationship with others.

Patience is the opposite of anger. We have all seen what anger can do. At a minimum, it prevents us from judging the situation accurately and causes us to act irrationally. Worst of all, it destroys our peace of mind. Anger normally is triggered by something very insignificant, such as a comment we find offensive or a habit we find annoying, and so forth. It leads us to do and say things that create harm to us and others. If we look at all the wars in this world, there is no doubt that they were caused by angry minds. External enemies harm us in slow and subtle ways. Anger, on the other hand, harms us from within.

Patience helps us in this life and all our future lives. The famous Indian sage Shantideva once said, “there is no evil greater than anger, there is no virtue greater than patience”. With patience, we can accept any pain that is inflicted upon us. With patience, nothing destroys our peace of mind and we do not experience any suffering. There are three types of patience:

The patience of not retaliating
The patience of voluntarily enduring suffering
The patience of definitely thinking about Dharma or spirituality

To practice the patience of not retaliating, we need to be mindful of how anger can destroy our peace of mind and be alert when situations arise when we might get angry. We need to think that if someone hits us with a stick it is not the fault of the stick. Similarly, when someone tries to harm us, it is their delusion to be blamed and not themselves. I know, tough to reconcile, right? Another way to think about this is to realize that when someone harms us, it is our Karma that created the situation. We must have harmed them in the past and by patiently accepting the situation, we are able to pay off that karmic debt.

The second kind of patience is the patience of volunteering enduring suffering. If we don’t have this patience, we will give up our tasks as soon as they become difficult. We will become more and more frustrated and we will end up accepting mediocracy. We often come across unpleasant conditions and misfortune. By voluntarily accepting these adversities, we eliminate sufferings from our lives. That does not mean the pain goes away, but it need not cause suffering within us. Instead of self-pity, we strengthen our resolve. We recall that these unpleasant conditions or misfortunes are the results of our previous negative karma and resolve to avoid negative karma moving forward. If we are able to endure adversities, we will be able to reap great rewards. Our present sufferings will diminish. Also, suffering helps us dispel pride, develop compassion and abandon negative karma.

The third type of patience is the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma or spirituality. If we listen to, contemplate, and meditate on spirituality and Dharma, we are practicing patience of definitely thinking of patience. So every Tuesday, when we meet for meditation, we are practicing patience of definitely thinking about Dharma. This is important because it creates a happy and patient mind.

So hopefully, we can all try a little harder to develop the type of patience that we need to work on. We may find a particular type of patience more difficult to practice than others depending upon karmic tendencies. But important thing is to make progress and not get discouraged.