Whenever we practise Dharma with a patient and joyful mind, we are practising the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma. Such patience is necessary, for, if our mind is impatient or unhappy when we engage in spiritual practice, this will obstruct our spiritual progress and prevent us from improving our wisdom. Even if we find some aspects of our practice difficult, we still need to practise with a happy mind.
In Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva explains this patience from a slightly different angle. According to this explanation, we are practising the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma whenever we use our understanding of profound Dharma instructions, such as those on emptiness or dependent relationship, in order to deepen our experience of patience.
This type of patience is important because the wisdom realizing emptiness is the only direct method of eradicating our delusions and suffering. If we use our experience of mental and physical suffering as an opportunity to improve our understanding of emptiness, not only will our pain become far more tolerable, but our experience of emptiness will also deepen considerably. Whenever we are suffering, our self-grasping generally manifests more strongly than normal. This makes our self-grasping easier to identify, thus helping our meditation on emptiness to make an unusually deep impact on our mind. Also, our pain forces us to look more carefully into the actual causes and nature of pain, pulling us deeper and deeper into the truth of emptiness.
When a person is afflicted by a disease such as cancer, he or she experiences great physical pain. What caused this pain? The disease. If someone hits us on the head with a stick, pain also arises. What caused this pain? The wielder of the stick. If pain is experienced in both cases, why are we more likely to get angry with the person who wielded the stick than with the disease?
The obvious answer is that it is not appropriate to generate anger towards a disease, for it does not choose to cause us suffering. A disease simply arises when all the causes and conditions for it to arise are assembled; it is not an independent agent that chooses to harm us. Because of this, anger is clearly not an appropriate response. Yet, if we do not get angry with a disease, neither should we get angry with a person who harms us. Why? Because he too is not a free and independent agent – he acts solely under the power of his delusions. If we are to get angry at all, we should direct our anger at these delusions.
Just as we do not choose to suffer from sickness, so the person who beats us does not choose to suffer from the inner sickness of anger. We might think that there is a difference between our sickness and the angry person, in that our sickness has no wish to harm us whereas an enemy most certainly does have this wish. What we must realize, however, is that the person who wishes to harm us does so without freedom; he is completely under the control of his anger. He does not decide, ‘Now I will become angry’; anger simply arises and takes over his mind without any choice on his part.
All shortcomings, delusions, and non-virtues arise through the force of conditions; they do not govern themselves. The assembled conditions that cause suffering have no thought to produce suffering, and nor does the resultant suffering think, ‘I was produced by assembled conditions.’ Therefore, the angry person, the anger itself, and the suffering that results from it are completely without independent existence; they exist solely in dependence upon their causes and conditions.
All things, including our state of mind, are dependent arisings; they do not have an independent or self-existent nature of their own. It is therefore senseless to react with anger to people or situations that have no choice in causing us harm. If we train our mind to see the interdependent nature of all phenomena, we shall be able to eliminate the cause of much of our anger.
Our normal view is that there is an inherently existent aggressor harming an inherently existent victim. This is a complete misconception of the situation. In reality, the aggressor and the victim are interdependent and utterly without inherent, or independent, existence. If we try mentally to isolate the aggressor from everything else in order to pinpoint someone we can blame, we cannot do so, for the aggressor has no existence independent of the other elements of the situation. The aggressor depends on his delusions and on the karma of the victim that impelled the aggressor to behave in that way at that moment; as well as on the circumstances of the situation, his personal and family background, the society in which he lives, his previous lives, and his being trapped in a samsaric body and mind. When we search for the aggressor in this way, he disappears in an endless web of relationships, causes, and conditions – there is no inherently existent person we can find to blame.
In the same way, the delusion that motivated the attack, the attack itself, the victim, and the victim’s suffering are all completely unfindable. If we are attacked, we strongly feel that we are a victim, but if we search analytically for this victim, trying to isolate it from everything else, we shall not find anything. There is nothing we can grasp onto as a victim; where we expected to find an inherently existent victim, we discover an emptiness that is the utter non-existence of such a victim. The victim is merely a label, a term in the conventional description of the event, existing in relation to all the other terms but not referring to anything real and findable. When we analyze the situation in this way, we discover that there is no one to blame and no one to feel sorry for. Everything disappears into an equal, undifferentiated emptiness, which is the true nature of all things.
It is also very helpful to examine the real nature of our pain. What precisely is pain? Where is it located? What is it made of? Where does it come from? Where does it go to? What relation does it have to us – the person who is in pain – or to the mind that is asking these questions? Pain naturally appears to us as something solid and undeniably real – something inherently existent – but when we search for it analytically, trying mentally to isolate pain from everything that is not pain, we cannot find it. Pain has no independent, concrete existence. This lack of inherent existence, or emptiness, is the real nature of pain. In emptiness there is no pain. Pain is merely an appearance to mind, existing only for a mind that does not see its real nature. Just as a mirage in a desert disappears when we search for it, so pain ceases to exist when we discover its real nature.
All effects arise from causes, and these causes also arise from previous causes. Since all causes and effects arise in dependence upon other causes and conditions, they completely lack any independent, or inherent, existence. Even though all things seem to exist from their own side, they are in reality like illusions. If we can remember to look at things in this light whenever difficulties present themselves, our anger and indeed all our delusions will vanish. Keeping such thoughts in mind when encountering anger-provoking situations is part of practising the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma.
It might be argued that if everything is like an illusion, who is there who should restrain what anger? All such restraint would be inappropriate in a world of illusions. This is a misunderstanding. Although things are like illusions in that they lack self-existence, suffering is still experienced. Overcoming this suffering depends upon making an effort to restrain delusions such as our anger. Although things lack independent existence – in fact because they lack independent existence – cause and effect operate to bring suffering results from non-virtuous actions and beneficial results from virtuous actions. Therefore it is never appropriate to indulge in anger, because this only plants the seeds for future misery.
When we are about to get angry, we should analyze the situation. We can ask ourself: ‘Who is there to get angry? Who is there to restrain what anger?’ In this way, we shall find that in reality there is no one to get angry and no anger to restrain. As a result our anger will disappear. Ultimately there is no anger, no object of anger, and no one who gets angry. Conventionally, however, anger exists and produces suffering, and so it needs to be restrained.
In summary, whenever we are harmed by anyone, we should think: ‘It is only because of his delusion that this person is harming me; he does not act freely.’ If in this way we can realize that all things arise from causes and conditions, we can prevent anger and remain in a happy state of mind no matter what happens.
If everything that arose did so according to its own independent, free choice, sentient beings would never have to experience any suffering, because no one would choose to suffer and everyone would choose to be happy all the time. Clearly there must be another explanation for why we suffer. We do not suffer because we choose to suffer, but because our mind is controlled by self-grasping ignorance. Since beginningless time, our mind has been governed by self-grasping, which prevents us from seeing things as they really are and causes us to engage in all kinds of unskilful and inappropriate actions. It is because of this that sentient beings suffer and cause others to suffer, not because they freely choose to do so. When we understand this deeply, we shall never feel anger towards sentient beings. Instead of anger, compassion will arise naturally in our hearts.