Report 61

6 Paramitas - Patience [Kshanti] II

From September 2009
Gaya: With being impatient I just start with breathing, try to be aware if I'm 'breathing'.
Stim: OK, take that. Even "I'm breathing" can be seen in the light of this teaching. There are many things we do, out of habit, in "I'm breathing now" that are actually unnecessary, or limiting, or obscuring of freshness or inclusiveness. Start with "I'm breathing", then open it up.

I realise that I had a fixed idea about how breathing should be like. And when it doesn’t match up with the idea, I would want to do something about it, change it, fix it. In meditation ‘breath like wind’ points to the fact that breathing is never constant. The fixed idea reveals judgements, comparisons, ideas of an ideal and creating unnecessary problems. So I understand the Steven’s comments more, especially freshness or inclusiveness in this light. There is an infinite variety of shades in colours …

Impatience is a shade of anger. Sometimes it’s because of feeling time passing. Sometimes it’s triggered by fear or lack of trust. As Zen pointed out, seeing that the boat is empty dissipates impatience.

Is patience a skill that can be learnt? Like how a feline would learn to bide its time and sense when to jump out of the bush for a successful kill? Patient people … what are they like? They are compassionate, gentle, generous, kind, polite, wise and so forth. Continued practice of bitter endurance wouldn’t help cultivating patience. Rather, patience is an expression of these qualities. Of course sometimes, it’s an act of restraint. Better say nothing sometimes.

Often one’s patience could be patchy: patient with some situations, while not so with others. Is this genuine patience or restraint born out of a sense of duty or unavoidable situations?