Ksantiparamita: the Perfection of Patience

Patience is:

The art of being-with,

Of profound intimacy with being,

The intimacy of truth.  

Ksanti, or patience, is the third perfection, following generosity and morality and preceding energy and wisdom.  I created the following points to support my practice of contemplating patience using Dale Wright’s book The Six Perfections as a jumping off point, and have left the page numbers in place in case anyone wants to take a swim in that book.  Much of this is my own reflections though, so don’t blame Dr. Wright for everything here :)   

– Patience is being-with; being with is intimacy; ksantiparamita is profound intimacy with all being. 

– We can be with whatever arises – our thoughts, perceptions, emotions and energies – rather than avoiding them or wishing that something else were happening that would stimulate different reactions.  We can be with what is true rather than turning from it.   Patience is the intimacy of truth.  

– In patience we allow ourselves to be present with all the things that lead to discomfort: our uncomfortable emotions, those of other, uncertainty, etc.

– Patience for those who cause anger and frustration: Beings who may cause me anger have been painfully conditioned over a long period of time to act as they do, just as I have been conditioned to react in anger.  I acknowledge our entire history leading to this moment and fill myself with compassion for all beings.  May I be fully aware that my response to them is an opportunity to cultivate patience, and may I be thankful for this opportunity. 

– Being with truth may mean being with what is difficult to realize.  Perhaps interpreting the world through pre-established ideas and assumptions is a deep form of impatience. 

– This may mean being with what is emotionally difficult.  Rationalizations and explanations that serve to blunt difficult truths abound.  Even saying, “well, this is just the way it is, I accept it,” is a way not dealing with difficult truths.

– Patience as being comfortable with not knowing: Impatient, we struggle for the truth and often engage in constructing shallow certainties.

– Patience as not having to shape or control a situation: Impatient, we sometimes try to direct events when it might be better just to leave them be.  

– Patience with zazen: Be patient with meditation being a gradual process, especially during those times that meditation seems to be transforming you, when ideas, emotions, perceptions are shifting. 

– Anger: Expressions of anger against a person who is wounding others effectively alienates them by setting up a bad versus good dichotomy.  Expressions of sadness about human ignorance and the pain it causes need not do this.  Anger is often thoughtless and not grounded in understanding, it is a natural but immature way of reacting to injustice. 

– Anger undermining ethical ambitions: Upon becoming angry, visualize angers detrimental effects, or juxtapose it to ones ethical ambitions, noticing how it will block you from your higher self.  Take note of assumptions you may be making about whatever is making you angry.  Was somebody who made us angry simply being careless?  Was there just a misunderstanding – perhaps based on someone being overwhelmed or distracted?  If someone truly has acted cruelly, fill oneself with the knowledge that people only do this based on their own histories of ignorance and suffering. 

– Witness the causes and conditions of anger rather than becoming angry oneself.

– Patience as contentment, 121: “The patient person is content to be wherever he or she is right now, no matter what this situation happens to be.  Contentment in this case is not letting go of effort or striving; what it releases is the struggle, the unnecessary conflict that stands in the way of lucid assessment and sustained conviction.”  

– Resentment is a form of impatience, of wishing for reality to be other than what it is, rather than allowing oneself to be with what is true.   

– In our impatience with others they can sense a “voiceless accusation…” 

– Wisdom is to sense the whole of the situation we find ourselves in. 

– Transience of suffering: It is intellectually simple to know that suffering is transient, but difficult to manifest that awareness in the moment of suffering.  Understanding that present suffering is momentary is one key to being present with it.  By visualizing the transience of suffering regularly, we prepare our bodies to accept this as a norm.

– The cultural problem of karma and rebirth, 126: People who have not grown up in a society that believes the universe follows laws of cosmic justice, such as karma and rebirth, but also divine reward and punishment of any kind, will likely have trouble accepting these aspects of Buddhism.  We may find ourselves in the position of wondering whether or not we can be Buddhists without these.

– Emptiness, 130: “Emptiness was the term used to coordinate the realizations of ‘impermanence,’ ‘dependent origination,’ and ‘no self.’”  “Emptiness was in many ways a teaching about how to live well in view of the prospects of human finitude.  Through reflecting on this teaching Buddhists contemplated the uncertainty of human thinking and sought ways not around this insight but through it to greater and greater realization.” 

– On consoling beliefs: NOT resorting to some consoling belief is a spiritual act, a facing and acceptance of a more chaotic, random reality.  Belief may be an evasive, self-deceptive response to the true conditions of the world; it is the true conditions that the perfections help us encounter. 

– Patience counters three mindsets of surrender: resentment, cynicism, and despair.

– Toleration and indifference: Toleration as a virtue does not mean toleration of everything, but mindful toleration in the service of some larger end.

– Tolerance as virtue, 129: “The perfection of tolerance is the meditative discipline of working with everything that assaults us, discomforts us, and forces suffering on us.  Holding the mind steady, we learn to examine the pain.” 

– Tolerance of uncertainty, 130: “Buddhist sutras warn against the fear that will arise when you truly encounter what it means that human understanding is always open, never final.”  Knowing often brings a sense of security, and we often come to firm conclusions for the sake of security.  131: “We are impatient with inconclusiveness in the quest for understanding, and that very impatience drives us to anxiety-ridden misunderstanding.” 

– Patience as “fearless reflection.”