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Pāramīs (6 of 10) Patience

We start today with the sixth of the ten pāramīs^[1], and it is generally translated into English as patience. It is important to appreciate how much this emphasis on patience as a perfection follows or builds on the foundation of the first five.

We begin with generosity—what we learn from generosity, and how it frees us in a certain way and benefits us. With that benefit of generosity, we build the next step, which is to live a life of ethical conduct and ethical behavior. Through our behavior, speech, and body, we do not cause harm in the world but actually offer benefit, having that be a source of, again, not obligation or restriction, but the opposite. Ethical conduct in Buddhism is meant to be another step toward learning how to be free.

Then renunciation is the beautiful quality of letting go of the things that harm us, letting go of the things which limit us and keep us from the higher good, the higher purpose that at least the pāramīs represent: the purpose of liberation and the purpose of living a life of compassion.

With renunciation, we have wisdom. Wisdom has very much to do with understanding what causes harm and deciding not to do it, and what brings benefit and doing the things which are beneficial. It doesn't take a PhD in Buddhist studies or philosophy to understand wisdom in Buddhism; it's very experiential.

Building on these earlier pāramīs, this understanding of harm and benefit becomes more and more acute. We become more and more sensitive in a very important way that allows us then to engage and to make effort—effort on the path of liberation, effort in our attitude on ethics, effort on the path of compassion.

But as we make effort, sometimes we need patience. That patience is building on the other pāramīs; it's supported by them. It's a patience that knows how to stay and be patient without harming ourselves, to be patient in a compassionate way. Patience is really supported by clear insight, understanding, and wisdom about why it's important to be patient.

In the teachings of this Buddhist word khanti^[2], which usually translates into English as patience, there are three different elements or aspects.

Perseverance

The first is perseverance. There is a continuity of practice, a continuity of just being engaged, again building on the other pāramīs. This is not blind perseverance or foolish perseverance where we are just hitting our head against the wall, or persevering in such a way that we get exhausted and stressed out. It's what I call gentle perseverance. Perseverance that is wise and does the wise thing in order to keep the long-term goal of practice in sight.

Even though the emphasis is so much—like in the last meditation, which was about just being in the moment fully—doing the practice of being fully in the moment is not the end of the story or the beginning of the story. It's like if the goal is to walk to the top of a mountain, you might want to just be with each step at a time. Some part of the walking is just really that step, and sometimes that's all you can do, but the preparations to go on the hike, the understanding of where the goal is—all those are in the picture. This long-term vision—saying, 'Yes, this is worthwhile, I'm going on this path, and I'm going to persevere'—is essential.

For some people, perseverance is actually the most important quality that supports their Buddhist practice. They might not have a lot of concentration, they might not have a lot of capacity for mindfulness, but what carries the day, what really supports them, is that they just keep practicing day in and day out. It could be relaxed; it's like running a marathon, you can't sprint. But day in and day out, moment by moment, coming back, practicing, and practicing, holding the course. Perseverance requires having the wisdom and the patience to persevere.

Patience Under Insult (Forbearance)

The second quality of patience is patience under insult. This is sometimes called forbearance. This is managing to go through all kinds of things which are challenging, difficult, insulting to us, or painful to hear, but learning not to give in to our own anger, not to pick up the hostility. Especially, it's not giving in to the hostility we might feel because of it. Patience under insult is the patience not to give in to hostility.

It doesn't mean we don't somehow take care of ourselves, or tell people to stop, go away, or do whatever needs to be done. We have to be wise about the circumstances we're in, but we don't give in to hostility. This can be as simple as not becoming annoyed or hostile toward our devices if they're not working right. We feel insulted, in a sense, by our devices not working or our connections dropping.

And it can be major problems in life. Persevering and not giving in to hostility, not giving in to despair or discouragement, is not always so easy given the magnitude of human suffering and the challenges people have in their lives. Especially now with COVID-19, with people experiencing the illness, losing loved ones, or not being able to go visit loved ones who are dying because they don't want to travel or are not allowed to visit the nursing home. There is unemployment, and the economic challenges are huge for a massive percentage of people in this country.

How do we live through all that without succumbing to hostility, anger, or despair? Some of that has to do with this idea of patience—being patient, persevering, giving yourself a continuity of practice, and understanding the tremendous value of staying free, staying compassionate, or practicing along the path of liberation. Seeing that that has the greatest value—probably the greatest value of anything, certainly a greater value than any good that can come from the hostility that we don't give in to. So this is a very important principle in these teachings of the pāramīs. Sometimes it's called forbearance, and it's not a very popular idea in the modern West. I think with forbearance, we often want to solve things quickly and fix things quickly. Classically in Buddhism, forbearance is a very important quality because of how it protects us from our own hostility.

Patient Acceptance of the Truth

The third quality of patience is the patient acceptance of the truth. Sometimes when we see what's really happening and what is true, we don't want to accept it. It's difficult to accept; it's challenging to our very sense of who we are. Some of the Buddhist teachings of not-self^[3]—not just the teachings, but some of the deeper insights that we get—are very hard to accept. To have the patient acceptance of being present for all the workings of our inner life that are a little bit out of our control—there is a not-self there—is where we find our freedom.

For example, sitting down to meditate, there have been times when it took a while for me to accept the truth that my mind was out of control, and that I had to be patient with that. I had to accept that that was the condition in which I was practicing, and only when I accepted my mind was out of control, thinking a mile a minute, would meditation really begin to start. Any avoidance of what's true, pretending it's not there, or trying to override it doesn't really work in terms of Buddhist practice.

It might be the truth of what's going on in the world around us, in our family, our relationships, and our work. There is an acceptance of the truth. That acceptance, the way it's described, doesn't mean that we condone it or we just blindly go along with it, as if we have to accept it and just continue with it. It's an acceptance that is a recognition: 'This is what's true.' And then hopefully we're wise about whether it can be changed, and we see what we can do to change it.

But I think this idea of patient acceptance of the truth is to accept things which we cannot change. We cannot change how impermanent, how inconstant this life is. And we cannot change the march of time. Some people are challenged as they get older and they see the end in sight, in a sense. The acceptance of our condition, our mortality—there are things to be accepted that are true. If we fight them, we are actually going in the wrong direction from freedom and from compassion.

Reflections

So the pāramī of patience is needed in the wake of effort because as soon as we make effort, sooner or later—usually sooner—we need patience to continue with the effort. We need perseverance. We need forbearance so we don't give in to hostility—patience under insult. And we need the appropriate acceptance of what's true, or at least a clear recognition of what's true, and that becomes the starting point for how to find our way.

For the next 24 hours, you might consider where and how you can have greater patience. What is your relationship to patience? Which of these three forms of patience is your strength, which do you have challenges with, which would you like to develop more, and which do you have questions and doubts about? Really engage in this topic of patience. Talk to friends, read about patience, and let this idea of patience really live with you for the next 24 hours. Explore it and get to know it. That will be preparation for tomorrow, because the next pāramī is truth. Perhaps there's something about patience that allows us to engage more fully and to see more fully what is true.

Thank you very much, and I look forward to our time tomorrow.