Tag Archives: patience

37 practices: verse 27, part 2 of 2

The translation and audio for practice 27, to cultivate patience, may be found in verse 27, part 1. Bear with me — this is a longer than usual post because I found some extra resources for the patience paramita. Or, to put it another way, this post is an excellent opportunity to practice the second kind of patience — and the reward will be immediate, because there are some fabulous commentaries ahead.

In part 1, we looked mainly at the first of the three categories of patience: being patient with sentient beings who harm or irritate us. Though this may be the kind of patience we are most often called upon to exercise — and also where we may be at the greatest risk of doing harm if we lose our patience — the other two types are also important, and we will look briefly at those today.

Pop quiz: Do you remember what the three categories of patience are, along with the three ways we are instructed to practice patience toward other beings, and — also very important to keep in mind — what exactly the Buddha meant by “patience”? If not, I recommend a quick review of the class notes for verse 27, part 1, and/or Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s commentary.

In the second class, we also looked at commentaries by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, and Ken McLeod; and turned to His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje, for some invaluable advice on how to prevent our practice of patience and the other paramitas from being plagued by . . . demons!  Continue reading

37 practices: verse 27, part 1 of 2

27. To cultivate patience

For bodhisattvas wishing to accrue / a wealth of wholesome virtue and good deeds,

All harm is like a precious treasure trove, / from other people or adversity.

To cultivate a patient attitude, / not feeling irritated or abused:

This is the way a bodhisattva trains.

verse 27 audio above

Patience is really the basis for all the bodhisattva boot camp practices, starting with verse 12, in which we truly begin to put others first, after setting the ongoing preliminary practices in motion (verses 1-7) and developing the three levels of motivation to wake up (verses 8-10).

Patience is the opposite of emotional reactivity, and it is that freedom, to whatever degree we have cultivated it, that gives us the space and perspective to repay harm with kindness and to see our detractors as our teachers, instead of blindly following the emotional impulses that arise from our ordinary habitual patterns. Geshe Jampa Tegchok, in Transforming the Heart, observes, “All of the practices mentioned earlier that involve transforming bad conditions into the path are included under the practice of patience.”

If we didn’t possess at least a little patience, we wouldn’t even be able to count to 10 before responding to insult or injury — the first step in anger management that most of us learn as children. So the good news is we probably aren’t starting from scratch, even though we may feel we have a long way to go.

So what, exactly, is patience? Gampopa has the answer!

Continue reading