Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Practicing Patience

I was taught that one way to practice patience is to empathize. If we empathize with the person who wronged us, we can look at them through their eyes with compassion.

Another way to practice is to realize that when we have problems with "enemies or non-living things," most likely it is our karma from past lives that is creating these problems. Therefore, we can look at the problem as karma, accept it and move on. Another way to to practice the patience is thinking about the dharma: understanding the meanings and looking at the teachings deeply through meditation.

Part 2 of the Six Perfections claim that there are three types of patience:

1. Patience when we are harmed by others -- not reacting with anger to those who have harmed us.

2. Patience when we are suffering -- thinking of our suffering coming from our past negative actions or retains. Therefore it's best to accept them and not create more negative karma. Retaliation only creates more suffering for ourselves by way of new bad karma.

3. Patience of keeping concentration -- that is, to continue meditating and concentrating on the dharma without allowing yourself to become distracted.


We are in charge of our attitudes.

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