Patience

Allan Lokos

What is there about the quality of patience that causes so many of us to respond to the very word with a sense of deficiency? “I don’t have enough” we say, putting it in the rarefied domain occupied by such phenomena as time and money. No matter how much money people have, they seem to feel they need more and, indeed, in difficult economic times, many truly do need more.

As to time, in any given day we all get exactly the same amount. The clock ticks with a relentless, unyielding persistence that alters not for even the most saintly or Buddha-like among us. So we alter our approach and try to squeeze just one more project into the day’s already bloated schedule.
The wonderful thing about patience, unlike time, is the more we use it, the more we have. Also, by its nature, patience creates a spaciousness that can alter our everyday experience from one of anxiety and deficiency to one of peace and plenitude.

One of the major issues so many of us deal with is impatience—with ourselves, with others, and with an enormous range of situations. Some of us have experienced so much impatience that we just assume we “do not have a lot of patience.” The current vernacular suggests that we are “hardwired” a certain way and we cannot change. We allow ourselves to believe that anger and impatience are a part of who we are rather than understanding that they are simply feelings that arise. Like anything else that arises, feelings pass away. They do not define character. Some feelings are unpleasant to experience, but they are not fixed, permanent conditions and again, they do not define who we are. It is through the development of mindfulness and patience that our more pleasant nature has the opportunity to emerge.

As we become mindful of the causes of our impatience we learn not to encourage them. We sense impatience, annoyance, and anger as they begin to arise within us and we then invite our calmer, wiser self to be present. Impatience and anger are natural feelings and we don’t want to suppress feelings. However, we do want to be aware of our feelings as they arise so that we don’t speak or act while angry fires are burning, a practice likely to cause misery for ourselves and others. With practices like mindfulness, compassion, and lovingkindness we can transform our anger into more positive, productive energy. We learn how to create a pause, a sacred moment in time, between our feelings of frustration, of not being heard, seen, or understood, and our response to those feelings. As we want to be forgiven for our unskillfulness, we learn to graciously forgive others as well. The more patient we become, the more at peace we become.

Those who think of patience as weakness and see anger as strength will be in for quite a revelation. In order for us to practice patience, we must have courage, wisdom, and a loving, compassionate heart. We come to understand patience as noble and valiant. We discover that if we want to live in a more peaceful world we must develop a more peaceful world within. We must nurture love and compassion for ourselves as well as for other beings.

When we cling to a desire for things to be different from the way they are, we are flirting with impatience because things aren’t different than they are. They may not be fair, kind, or just, but they are as they are. In certain special circumstances if anger arises out of compassion related to an abusive or unjust situation it can become the motivation for wise action. If such action is intended to be beneficial, not vengeful, then anger with mindfulness can serve a positive purpose. But take note, anger arising from or fueled by hatred or a desire for revenge cannot be positive or beneficial. This is an important distinction.

In Buddhist thought the beginning of wisdom is the ability to see things as they really are. Acceptance of truth relies on the development of wisdom because if we are to accept the truth, we must be able to recognize the truth. Discernment of truth, of course, is not always easy, which contributes to the challenge of developing true patience. It requires our taking the time to look beyond the surface to the deeper levels of our experience. We see that there is no self that has to be protected, inflated, or aggrandized. We do not have to defend some self-image that we have created. The ego may feel threatened, and Mara (ego) can be a formidable opponent to spiritual growth. This is when patience is challenged at its deepest level. Here we must allow time to open a sense of spaciousness so that we ourselves become the fertile soil from which patience grows. Time is no longer an enemy; we do not feel rushed to react. Just as the Buddha looked right at Mara and calmly said, “I know you,” and thus dissipated its power, we too can look directly at our fear and say, “I know you. You are a feeling. You have no power unless I empower you and I choose not to do so.”

As we see that defensiveness is unnecessary, we can then view a potentially confrontational situation with curiosity, interested in what is really going on with the other person. Like me, he wants to be happy. Like me, she doesn’t want to suffer. What can I do to ease this tension? Have I really heard his point? With acceptance we have the time we need. We no longer have to rush in and change things. We can enjoy the opulent abundance of a patient mind.

Allan Lokos will be teaching at NYI on February 10th and 11th. The subject: Patience.