ON PATIENCE AND ENDURANCE

ON PATIENCE AND ENDURANCE

"The qualities that really see you through the practice are often very unassuming.  The flashy things that can happen in the meditation are not necessarily things you can rely on. 

Your real friends are the ones that stay in the background.

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Take patience and endurance, for example.  

These qualities are not emphasized in our society. In fact we are probably one of the few societies that encourages children to be impatient, one that actually provokes their desires, provokes their anger, provokes their delusion. All those advertisements that are aimed at kids to make them want things right away, right now. So we end up with qualities that should be strong friends in the mind but instead are very weak.

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So we consciously have to work on them to make them strong. When meditation goes well, you stick with it. 

When it doesn't go well, you still stick with it. When strong emotions are screaming in your ears, you just stick there with the breath. It may not seem to be accomplishing much, but the patience you're developing is actually a very important weapon in your arsenal, an important ally to have in your battle with the defilements. 

Because many times when the defilements come on strong, the strong part is the initial impact. If you can withstand that and sit through it for a while, you get to the point where it weakens.  That's when you can deliver a blow.

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This is how patience and endurance are your friends.  They help you last through the difficult periods so that when things are more propitious, when things will work, when you can finally think of a way of dealing with the problem, or suddenly see something that you haven't seen for a long time, the patience and endurance are what get you there.  These are mild unassuming qualities. If you had a color for them, it would probably be gray, but they're the ones you have to depend on. So learn to have an appreciation for them and learn to work with them.

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Patience doesn't mean that you just sit there and don't do anything. It means that you're willing to be in this over the long haul. If something is not working in the mind, you keep trying various approaches. You don't get discouraged. You don't give up..."

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Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Excerpt from "Dying Friends"

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Read the complete essay here:

http://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/CrossIndexed/Published/ePublish_talks_4/040302dyingFriends.pdf