Let’s start with a small contemplation exercise. Take a minute and think to yourself the last time something really nasty or stressful happened in your life. Maybe there was a person behind this unfortunate happening or maybe it happened without any sentient referent to look for. The memory might just pop up the second you read the sentence or you may have to spend some time on it. Go for it. Visualize the whole event, including your own feelings to the whole chaos.
Now think to yourself how your response to this stressful time in your life was. Maybe the event and turmoil it caused lasted for many months or maybe it was just for that day. Maybe you are suffering through it right now. However, focus on your response more than the event. What was your first instinctive reaction to this event? Was it anger? What were your feelings throughout the event? Was it hatred and frustration? What are your reactions now? Is it disappointment rather than acceptance?
Getting what we don’t want, not getting what we want!
Here’s the truth for most of us. We are an impatient bunch of people. Whenever something we don’t like happens to us or around us, our first response to that situation is aversion. Aversion in turn most often results in annoyance and frustration, leading further to the destructive emotion of anger. Anger, while might seem powerful and attractive at first but if you look deeply within that emotion, it only brings misery. Look within your own experience. Has it ever brought you happiness and peace? How does your body feel when it’s angry? Yes, feeling angry is a natural human emotion, but expressing it, especially from the intention of inflicting harm brings only misery to you and others around you.
What is patience?
“Be like water. It rises above the stones and flows. Similarly rise above obstacles in Life and move through them. Have patience and flow over them.”
– Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
We, the writers, at The Art of Living are not a fan of referring to Wikipedia for our research but in this instance we will be flexible on our policy. “Patience (or forbearance) is the ability to endure difficult circumstances such as perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in annoyance/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can have before negativity.”
Patience is power. It is a symptom of strength. It’s an emotionally freeing practice of waiting, watching, and knowing when to act. It’s not succumbing and surrendering to the harmful emotion of anger, but instead rising over it and choose to act for your well-being and for those around you.
Now, go back to your visualization exercise and imagine if your reactions to that unfortunate situation were led by patience instead. How differently would you have reacted? Would the outcome have been different for you and for others involved in the situation? Pause and think for a few minutes.
It would have been led by some degree of compassion like a mother’s anger for a child running to cross a busy street. A mother’s love and compassion for her child is inbuilt. That’s why no matter what the kid does, she only gives the child love and in process her heart only grows. We too can develop the same attitude towards all the other sentient beings. It’s not easy but practice makes the cultivation of patience perfect.
5 ways to deal with any situation patiently
a) It is ok, to be not ok: The world while a beautiful place is undergoing constant change. As you grow up more and more, the more you realize this. One moment everything is all happy and smooth, next moment something unfortunate happens and everything goes for a toss. Accept this truth. Accepting it will make you look at suffering with the eyes of courage and bravery rather than aversion. The next time a challenge is facing you straight in the eye, you will be more prepared for it. You will know that this is the nature of life. Ups and downs happen, and this is one of those downs! Training your mind to look at an undesirable event in your life this way will better prepare you to deal with it.
“Those desiring to escape from suffering hasten right towards it. With the very desire for happiness, out of delusion they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy.” – Shantideva, Indian Buddhist Monk, 8th Century
b) Be the better man or woman: There are already so many bad actions, and equally bad if not worse reactions, to those actions happening in the world. Be it countries waging war or couples finding faults in each other. Look within yourself. Just because the other person is reacting with anger and harming himself, do we have to react with anger and harm ourselves as well? Isn’t it more reasonable to deal with this situation a little more maturely and maybe the other person will also learn a valuable lesson out of the situation?
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” – Mahatma Gandhi
c) Have fun with it: If you’re fighting and resisting, and struggling to act this way or that way, why don’t you try something completely opposite? Turn the situation on the head by using that sparkling sense of humor of yours.
d) Meditate: If the perpetrator is not near you and your reaction can wait like a reply to a condescending or hurtful email or an abusive text message, meditate before reacting. Take 3 deep breaths in and out, become as stable and still as a mountain and let those angry and nasty sensations leave. The response you draft then, in a state of relaxation and clarity will definitely be more productive to your health, and come to think of it for the other person as well. Sounds difficult? Don’t worry, continuous practice of meditation will make it happen effortlessly.
e) Think from the other person’s perspective: The supposed perpetrator might not be as evil as your mind first viewed him. Think and reflect on the causes and conditions that led him to say or do those things that you disliked so much. If you would have been in that situation, how would you have reacted? Can you be brave enough to introspect and look for faults within yourself that led to this situation?
We all need a new bumper sticker: PRACTICE PATIENCE, PRACTICE HAPPINESS! Again, it’s not easy but remember nothing of true value ever is. One step, one undesirable event at a time, we all can do it. We can use that suffering as an opportunity to cultivate more and more patience and goodness for the world.
