We might think that patience is a kind of ‘grin and bear’ it practice — a kind of muscle down and endure attitude. This can come with a sense that we are waiting for conditions to change, and when they finally do, then we’ll be happy.
But wise patience has a quality of ease in the moment. It’s not leaning forward in anticipation of some hoped-for future time when we can relax. The perfection of patience is peaceful and content in this moment.
When we are patient we begin to allow everything to be just as it is. We drop the struggle with what we think should or could be happening.
At first, it feels a bit like downshifting. Instead of leaning forward into a perceived future, we start to lean back and allow the moment to arrive.
I recently came across a link to Ajahn Brahm’s 2006 Rains Retreat talks, and in the first talk he said the following, which really landed deeply for me, and strikes me as recipe for a more easeful understanding of patience:
“Stop trying to GET anything. Instead, GIVE yourself to the moment, to this breath.”
The ten perfections (determination, lovingkindness, truth, virtue, energy, generosity, renunciation, patience, equanimity and wisdom) are considered inter-related, rather than stacked. In other words, they support each other. Our realization tends to deepen across the board, rather than mastering one quality and then moving onto the next.
So there is a beautiful inter-play between all of the perfections, but here specifically, in Ajahn Brahm’s instructions, between generosity, renunciation and patience.
If we are practicing renunciation (“stop trying to get anything”) and generosity (“give yourself to the moment, to the breath”), a natural patience arises. The sense of having to wait for better conditions is absent.
