There are three kinds of situation in which we need to learn to be patient: (1) when we are experiencing suffering, hardship, or disappointment, (2) when we are practising Dharma, and (3) when we are harmed or criticized by others. Correspondingly, there are three types of patience: (1) the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering, (2) the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma, and (3) the patience of not retaliating. These three types of patience do not come easily, and may seem somewhat strange when we first read about them. However, once we understand them clearly and put them into practice sincerely and skilfully, they will liberate our mind from one of its most obsessive delusions and bring great peace and joy. It is therefore worthwhile to persevere in these practices even if initially they may seem unusual or even unnatural.
To practise the first patience – accepting willingly whatever suffering we cannot avoid – we should remember that, wherever we find ourself within samsara, only a few circumstances bring happiness whereas the causes of misery abound. This is the very nature of samsara – its sufferings are infinite while its joys are limited. Moreover all the suffering we encounter is the result of actions we ourself have done in the past. If we do not experience this suffering, then who should? We should therefore learn to accept what is unavoidable rather than fight against it.
If we learn to accept unavoidable suffering, unhappy thoughts will never arise to disturb us. There are many difficult and unpleasant circumstances that we cannot avoid, but we can certainly avoid the unhappiness and anger these circumstances normally provoke in us. It is these habitual reactions to hardship, rather than the hardship itself, that disturb our day-to-day peace of mind, as well as our spiritual practice.
When we learn to accept difficult circumstances patiently, the real problem disappears. For example, suppose our body is afflicted by a painful illness. If we have a way of accepting the pain – for instance, by seeing it as a means of exhausting negative karma – our mind will remain at peace even though our body is in pain. Moreover, since physical pain is closely related to the tension and stress in our mind, as our mind relaxes we may discover that the physical pain actually subsides and our body is able to heal itself. However, if we refuse to deal realistically with the discomfort, cursing our illness and letting ourself become depressed, then not only shall we have to endure the additional suffering of mental torment, but very probably our physical pain will increase as well.
We can see therefore that responding to hardship with non-acceptance and anger only makes matters worse. By destroying the merit, or positive potential, in our mind, anger makes it very difficult to fulfil our wishes; and by causing us to engage in negative actions, it sows the seeds for greater suffering in the future. In short, anger destroys our present peace and happiness, robs us of our future happiness, and ensures that we suffer in life after life.
There are many benefits to be gained from patiently accepting suffering. Not only does it enable us to maintain a peaceful and positive mind in the face of distressing circumstances, but it also helps us to gain a clear and dispassionate view of the nature of our samsaric situation. There is a certain mental stability to be had merely from recognizing that every experience of pain or discomfort is the fault of our being caught up in samsara – of our being born, living, and dying in a state of unknowing and confusion.
Our real problem is not the physical sickness, difficult relationship, or financial hardship that we might currently be experiencing, but our being trapped in samsara. This recognition is the basis for developing renunciation, the spontaneous wish to attain complete freedom from every trace of dissatisfaction, which in turn is the foundation of all the higher spiritual realizations leading to the boundless happiness of liberation and enlightenment. But this recognition can only dawn within the clear and open mind of patient acceptance. For as long as we are in conflict with life’s difficulties, thinking that things should be different from the way they are and blaming circumstances or other people for our unhappiness, we shall never have the clarity or spaciousness of mind to see what it is that is really binding us. Patience allows us to see clearly the mental habit patterns that keep us locked in samsara, and thereby enables us to begin to undo them. Patience is therefore the foundation of the everlasting freedom and bliss of liberation.
Normally our need to escape from unpleasant feelings is so urgent that we do not give ourself the time to discover where these feelings actually come from. Suppose that someone we have helped responds with ingratitude, or that our partner fails to return our affection, or that a colleague or boss continuously tries to belittle us and undermine our confidence. These things hurt, and our instinctive reaction is to try immediately to escape the painful feelings in our mind by becoming defensive, blaming the other person, retaliating, or simply hardening our heart. Unfortunately, by reacting so quickly we do not give ourself the time to see what is actually going on in our mind. In reality, the painful feelings that arise on such occasions are not intolerable. They are only feelings, a few moments of bad weather in the mind, with no power to cause us any lasting harm. There is no need to take them so seriously. We are just one person among countless living beings, and a few moments of unpleasant feeling arising in the mind of just one person is no great catastrophe.
Just as there is room in the sky for a thunderstorm, so there is room in the vast space of our mind for a few painful feelings; and just as a storm has no power to destroy the sky, so unpleasant feelings have no power to destroy our mind. When painful feelings arise in our mind, there is no need to panic; we can patiently accept them, experience them, and investigate their nature and where they come from. When we do this, we shall discover that painful feelings do not come to us from outside but arise from within our own mind. Circumstances or other people have no power to make us feel bad; the most they can do is trigger the potentials for painful feelings that already exist within our own mind. These potentials or karmic imprints are the residue of the negative actions we created in the past, which we performed because our mind was under the control of delusions, all of which stem from self-grasping ignorance. By patiently accepting painful feelings without clinging to them, the negative karmic potentials from which they arose are purified, and we shall never have to experience that karma again.
Moreover, painful feelings can only arise and remain in our mind because of our present self-grasping. If we examine our mind carefully while we are experiencing painful emotions, we shall discover that these feelings are invariably mixed with self-grasping. In particular, it is our grasping at an inherently existent I and mine that makes us suffer. The feelings of hurt are inseparably bound up with grasping at I and mine; we strongly feel ‘I am hurt’ or ‘My feelings are hurt.’ The intensity of our suffering is in direct proportion to the intensity of our self-grasping. We cannot immediately stop self-grasping, but if we stand back from the problem just enough to glimpse how self-grasping is creating the problem, the strength of our self-grasping is undermined.
There is an enormous difference between the thoughts ‘I am feeling bad’ and ‘Unpleasant feelings are arising in my mind.’ When we identify with our feelings, we make them bigger and more solid than they are, and it becomes far more difficult to let the unpleasant feelings go. On the other hand, when we learn to view our feelings in a more detached way, seeing them simply as waves in the ocean of our mind, they become less frightening and much easier to deal with constructively.
We should not be discouraged by the difficulties involved in practising patience. In ancient India, there were ascetics who endured tremendous pain and self-mortification merely to propitiate certain deities, and nowadays there are many sportsmen, dancers, models, soldiers, and so forth who inflict extraordinary physical punishment upon themselves in the pursuit of their professions. It is easy to think of many other people who voluntarily endure great suffering merely to earn money or enhance their reputation. If they can bear such tremendous difficulties for limited goals, why can we not accept the difficulties and inconvenience involved in our pursuit of the ultimate happiness of enlightenment and the welfare of all living beings? Surely such a goal should be worth a little discomfort? Why are we so easily discouraged by the small difficulties of human life?
By familiarizing our mind with the patience of voluntarily accepting suffering, our problems and troubles will eventually disappear. Everything depends upon familiarity; once we are familiar with something, we can accomplish it without any difficulty. If we do not learn to accept the comparatively small harms we experience in daily life, we shall have to face far greater suffering in the future. On the other hand, if we learn to be patient with relatively minor sufferings, such as criticism, unpopularity, and slander, we shall gradually learn to cope with greater sufferings and pains. Eventually we shall be able to accept with a calm and happy mind all the sufferings of human life, such as heat, cold, hunger, thirst, disease, imprisonment, physical abuse, and even death. In this way, we shall be able to live without fear, knowing there is nothing that could happen to us that we cannot accept and transform into the spiritual path.
Shantideva gives an analogy to show how we can increase the strength of our patient acceptance. When a war-hardened soldier is wounded in battle and sees his own blood, the sight makes him roar defiantly and increases his courage and strength. On the other hand, a man unused to fighting is discouraged merely by the sight of another person’s blood, perhaps becoming so weak that he even faints! Since both these men see human blood, why is the soldier encouraged and the other man discouraged? The difference is due to the force of familiarity. The more familiar we become with the patient acceptance of suffering, the more the strength of our patience will increase. Therefore, whenever we experience suffering we should recall the teachings on patience and thereby prevent this suffering from harming us.
Whenever a wise person intent on attaining enlightenment encounters difficulties or adverse conditions, he or she endures these without letting them disturb his peaceful mind. We should realize that our deadliest enemies are anger and the other delusions. As these delusions are deeply engrained mental habits, working to overcome them is not always easy. Anyone who has given up smoking or another addiction knows how hard it can be to go against the grain of our harmful habits. A certain amount of suffering is therefore inevitable in the course of our spiritual practice, but, if we remind ourself of the limitless benefits of overcoming our negativity, this will not be too difficult to bear. After all, the suffering involved in overcoming our negativity pales into insignificance when compared with the suffering involved in not overcoming our negativity!
The person who bears all suffering and overcomes the enemies of anger and other delusions is truly worthy of being called a ‘hero’ or ‘heroine’. Usually we reserve this title for someone who kills other living beings in battle, but such a person is not really a hero for his enemy would have died naturally in the course of time anyway. What he did was not much different from killing a corpse. But our internal enemies – the delusions – will never die a natural death. If we do not exert effort in ridding our mind of these persistent foes, they will keep us locked in the prison of samsara, as they have done since beginningless time.
For developing spiritual realizations, suffering has many good qualities; so for a spiritual practitioner it need not be a negative experience. Through reflecting on our own suffering, we can develop many useful insights and positive qualities. Recognizing our vulnerability dispels our arrogance and deluded pride. Understanding how our present suffering is merely a symptom of our being in samsara enables us to develop renunciation. Furthermore, we can use our own pain to understand the pain of all living beings. Having learned to accept our own suffering patiently, if we then think of the suffering of all the other living beings trapped in samsara, compassion will arise naturally.
Renunciation and compassion are two of the most important spiritual realizations, and it is our suffering that enables us to gain these realizations. Those who do not learn to face with courage the truth of suffering, and to accept their own problems patiently, will not only feel helpless and unhappy but also deprive themselves of the opportunity to develop any authentic spiritual realizations.