Persistent Patience

Close your eyes. Watch the breath all the way in, all the way out. Stick with it. This quality of persistence is one of our strengths in the practice, because we have to change our habits. Sometimes they’re easy to change; sometimes they’re hard.

As the Buddha pointed out, even in the four noble truths, we’ve got some bad habits. We go about looking for happiness in the wrong way. We have to change our ways. Sometimes you can change quickly. Other things lie deeper, and it’s going to take time. That’s when you have to stick with it.

That’s the real meaning of patience in the Buddha’s teachings. Sometimes we think that someone who’s patient just sits there and waits. That’s not the case. You realize there’s work to be done, and you keep at it, keep at it, keep at it. You don’t stop and say, “When, when, when are the results going to come? I want them right now, right now, right now.” If that’s your approach, you’re not going to get very far. You give up. Then you start again. Give up again. But if you realize that some of your habits are deeply ingrained and they’re going to take time, you stick with it.

You learn how to talk to yourself along the way, to give yourself encouragement. As the Buddha said, he would “instruct, rouse, urge, and encourage” his students. Four verbs. One of them is giving information. The other three are giving energy. So you have to learn how to give energy to your practice. At the same time, you’re patient in waiting for the results to come. When they do come, you protect them. You don’t just throw them away.

This is why one of the basic principles of the practice—not only when you’re sitting here with your eyes closed, but also when you open your eyes—is that you’re very careful about what you look at. When you open your ears, what do you listen for? If greed goes out your ears and eyes, then it’s going to come back in a hundred fold. That just aggravates the problem.

So when you’re looking at something, ask yourself, “Why am I looking?” If the reason is good, okay, go ahead and look. But notice how you’re looking and notice when your reasons for looking start changing. You’ve got to learn how to protect what you’ve got. Protect your efforts. Encourage them when they need encouraging. And when they start showing just a little bit of result, protect those results. Don’t throw them away.

Redwoods grow out of little tiny seeds. When the seedlings come out, they’re very, very small but they have a lot of potential. This principle applies both to bad mental states and to good mental states. So a lot of times, you’re going to be dealing with little tiny seeds in the mind. You wonder, “When do I get to the big issues?” Well, the big issues are right there in the seeds. That’s why you have to keep dealing with individual things as they come up. You’re not doing battle with craving in the abstract. You’re doing battle with individual cravings as they come, as they come.

So. Be persistent and patient at the same time, and that combination will see you through.