I am currently reading a book about patience, called Perfecting Patience by Dalai Lama. One area the book describes is how, by accepting suffering as an inevitable part of life, we can more readily embrace tolerance and patience. There is another aspect, which is that we learn to embrace suffering as part of the spiritual path. But when I read about this aspect of patience, I wonder if it means resignation of sorts. What's the difference between true tolerance and resignation?
According to Buddhist teachings, suffering comes from attachment of some kind, usually to thoughts. If I continue to think and dwell on something that hasn't yet happened or isn't really my total responsibility, I become a prisoner to the thought. I add proliferations of thoughts until it becomes bigger and bigger. Then it gets out of control. Only through the grace of the present moment--it's sheer weight of being--can I be released from the tyranny of the thought. That comes from just being present with what is, like a fist that is opening up to the contingent moment.
Embodiment is an easy reminder: I am here, in this moment, and nowhere else. Even something like getting up to go to the washroom during work break is one opportunity to relax into the steps. We can even imagine ourselves in that moment as Sisyphus, taking his break from the next roll of the rock up the hill.
One enemy of patience is simply overthinking and overcalculating. When I let go of trying to calculate my life--like trying to figure out every move and every step exactly--then a breath of fresh air comes in. I am able to release myself from the pressure to constantly align myself to my inner goals.
Most importantly, when we realize that the world does not go according to our plans, we can treat this not as inconvenience but more as opportunity to reflect: does the success of this outcome really make a difference to who I am? What if the plan simply fails? Am I a failure because of it? And who is this I anyway? The ultimate tolerance is in realizing how the ego endlessly demands, yet many of these demands are not actual needs. They are nice to have but not absolute shoulds. So when we think this way, we can breathe more and enjoy what is happening rather than seeing it as a burden or tribulation.
