Page 28 - EH62
P. 28

TEACHINGS  |  EASTERN HORIZON     25








                                                 Patience


                                                 By Norman Fisher Roshi


                                                 Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, translator, and director of
                                                 the Everyday Zen Foundation. His numerous books include What Is
                                                 Zen? Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind, Training in Compassion: Zen
                                                 Teachings on the Practice of Lojong, and Opening to You: Zen-Inspired
                                                 Translations of the Psalms.




                The perfection of patience       powerful practice, a prized and   the most fruitful time for spiritual
                is kṣānti pāramitā in Sanskrit. Kṣānti   essential one. A person who develops   practice because they are exactly
                i can be translated as “patience,”   it has strength of character, vision,   when the practice of patience comes
                “forbearance,” or “tolerance,” but   courage, dignity, and depth. She or   most into play. When things get
                these words don’t capture the    he understands something profound   tough you should intensify rather
                fullness of what kṣānti connotes   about human beings and how to   than set aside your practice.
                because they all imply a kind of   love them. I’m using perfection of
                quietism or passivity. To be patient   patience to denote kṣānti pāramitā   It’s natural to turn away in the
                can be understood to mean to suffer   because we are so profoundly   face of difficulty. We come by this
                silently, like a patient in a hospital   impatient about everything these   powerful habit honestly. No one
                who can’t affect her own cure and   days. We can use a dose of old-  wants to go toward pain. We want
                so must wait for the ministrations   fashioned patience. But understand   to go elsewhere, take a break, think
                of others. Forbearance has an even   that I’m using the word patience in   of something else, get rid of it if
                greater sense of quietly enduring.   this special, fuller sense.   we can. We distract, deny, blame,
                Tolerance implies a kind of benign                                 or rush around in generally futile
                neglect—not correcting, fixing, or   Patience is the most important   attempts to fix it somehow. With
                complaining but being tolerant.   of all the bodhisattva practices   the practice of patience we train
                On the other hand, tolerance     because without it all the others   ourselves to do the opposite: to turn
                also implies broad-mindedness:   will eventually fail. It is easy enough   toward the difficulty and embrace it
                a tolerant person is open to the   to practice meditation, generosity,   as an ally.
                views and actions of others, neither   ethical conduct, and other wonderful
                condemning nor dismissing.       practices when things are going   Being with Difficulty
                                                 smoothly. But when things fall    We all understand that life will at
                Though all these words reflect in   apart—as they inevitably do from   times be difficult. We are aware
                part what is meant by kṣānti, kṣānti   time to time—we revert to old   of the various drastic forms of
                pāramitā exceeds them. To practice   patterns. Over the years many   suffering like illness, death, loss,
                kṣānti pāramitā is to patiently,   people have told me they regret   disgrace, financial ruin, broken
                tolerantly forbear hardships and   that they haven’t been tending to   relationships, addiction, or despair.
                difficulties—but not passively.   their spiritual practice lately, but   In all too many communities there
                The perfection of patience is    they can’t right now; they’re having   are, in addition to all these, socially
                transformative. It transforms difficult   some personal setbacks and will   determined forms of suffering
                circumstances from misfortunes   get back to their practice as soon as   like war, violence, sexism, racism,
                or disasters into spiritual benefit.   things clear up. What they haven’t   homophobia, severe political
                For this reason it is a particularly   understood is that difficult times are   repression, and crushing poverty.
   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33