What I wanted to really focus on this morning is the Parāmita of patience,
The practice of patience,
The process of developing patience.
I do a lot of reading in a book called The Way of the Bodhisattva.
It's based on a talk that was given by an Indian Buddhist monk,
I think in the sixth century,
By the name of Shanti Deva.
And Shanti Deva was a big one to look at the differentiation between pain and suffering.
You know,
The Four Noble Truths,
The first truth talks to us about dukkha,
This word that is usually translated as suffering.
But a lot of people these days are starting to use a different word than that.
Things like discomfortability,
Dis-ease,
The feeling that something is just off balance somehow.
That word dukkha literally means a wheel that doesn't fit properly on the axle and so it gives a rough ride.
And when we look at dukkha in that light,
This discomfort,
We can think of it more as pain than suffering.
And then the idea that suffering is what we build up around the pain that we experience,
The pain in relationships,
The pain in our relationship to ourselves and our relationship with others.
The tapes that we play over and over in our head,
The self-created suffering.
There's an old expression,
Something to the effect of that pain is a natural part of life but suffering is optional.
So,
Shantideva advises us to be very careful with the pain that we experience,
To practice with it skillfully so that we don't build up anger,
Resentment,
Sorrow.
Things that he identified as self-created suffering.
Anger especially he was very keen on warning people against.
There's a verse from his writing that says,
No evil is there similar to anger,
No austerity to be compared with patience.
Steep yourself therefore in patience in all ways urgently and with zeal.
So a lot of my practice has been to find my way into patience,
To find my way into learning how to develop patience.
And of course the difficulty is that,
You know,
Life is complex.
You know our time in America,
Modern American society,
There is so much uncertainty,
So much behavior that we see in people,
So many ideas being espoused on either side of the political spectrum that we find ourselves really having a difficulty with.
Our speech and our actions in response to that are shaped in how we react to our discomfort.
Our speech and our actions and our thinking are shaped in the ways that we,
You know,
That stem from the suffering that we create around ourselves.
The one thing I know for sure is that the only time that I have to work with these reactions is now here in the present moment.
The only time I have to work with the development of patience,
The practice of patience is in the present moment.
And the only other thing I know is that this present moment is colored by what I do in the immediately previous moment.
And the next moment is colored by what I do in this moment.
So one point of time,
One moment of existence follows the next.
And we have to be careful to lead ourselves in skillful ways.
So let's go ahead and get into a meditation.
If you're sitting,
I encourage you to have your feet on the floor.
Let your head be level.
Your eyes can be closed or open and gently cast down.
Let your hands rest in your lap.
Just take a few moments.
A few good deep breaths.
Feel yourself begin to root into your meditation posture.
Allow a sense of gentle mindfulness to establish itself.
And bring this mindfulness to your breath.
Come to know the nature of your breath in this moment.
Remember in meditation,
Your breath doesn't have to be any special way.
Doesn't have to be long,
Doesn't have to be deep.
It just needs to be yours.
Your breath,
This moment.
Your breath is your closest ally.
Your closest friend.
Always there waiting to be rediscovered.
Always there waiting to offer you presence.
A sense of calm.
Let your awareness now begin to come down into your belly.
Find your diaphragm.
Just above your navel.
Feel it expand as you inhale.
Consciously feel it contract as you exhale.
And now maintaining mindfulness of the breath.
Let your awareness to suffuse throughout your entire body.
Be aware of yourself present in this moment.
Present in this place.
Let your awareness to suffuse throughout your entire body.
Let your awareness to suffuse throughout your entire body.
Let your awareness to suffuse throughout your entire body.
The world around us is complex.
It can be difficult to understand and it seems like the harder we try the less we know.
This is why a practice of patience is so important in our lives.
Not to excuse the actions of others.
To somehow feel that we just have to bear it.
That's not what patience is.
A practice of patience is more about ourselves.
It shapes the way in which we respond to situations and to people.
It helps us to see what is pain.
And to understand how we engage in a process of creating suffering.
Patience can also lead us into the development of tolerance.
Patience.
Again,
Not somehow feeling that we need to just simply tolerate something and let it happen.
But simply to understand that something is happening,
That it is real,
Whether we like it or not.
And that we have a choice in our response.
Sometimes people can be quite difficult.
I'm sure we've both known people who are just hard to be with consistently.
Something about them,
Their own anger,
Their own pain and suffering that spills onto us.
Sometimes in very,
Very hurtful ways.
Shanti Deva teaches us that we can learn to recognize when this is the case.
We can learn to know what we can expect from a person who's suffering in that way.
Shanti Deva wrote,
What point is there in being angry,
Like resisting fire for its heat?
We have to practice detachment from our reactive patterns in these situations.
And that's made easier by knowing and accepting what it is that we may receive from someone whose nature seems to be hurtful.
We come to expect it.
We take steps to limit our relationship with them,
If that seems appropriate.
And we practice patience and tolerance with compassion for the other person's suffering.
Thank you.
But our experience has perhaps shown that people are basically good.
Our positive interactions with others far outweigh the negative.
We can be grateful for that.
Even so,
Everyone has a bad day.
We may come across someone who we know and who is suddenly giving us a hard time.
Suddenly demonstrating anger,
Hurtfulness.
And we may be surprised.
We may react in ways that are unskillful.
We know this is not how they normally act.
But our fight response can come up.
Shanti Deva cautions us against this.
When interacting with someone whose actions don't seem to their personality,
Shanti Deva writes,
And if the other person's faults are fleeting and contingent on their circumstance,
And if living beings are by nature wholesome,
It is likewise senseless to resent them,
And to be left in clouds.
Sometimes our patience is in just offering someone some space.
Remembering that they have pain just as we do.
They create suffering for themselves just as we do.
And can we recognize that someone's pain,
The suffering they are showing us,
Isn't permanent,
It will change.
And can our practice of patience offer the space for that change to happen,
And allow us to greet them back with open arms.
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