Patience

For most of us, patience refers to tolerance or endurance. In Buddhism, it has a specific meaning. It actually refers to a mind that can remain undisturbed when we are harmed by others, when we are suffering or when we face obstacles in the course of Dharma pursuits.

How could we develop such a virtuous mind in the face of people who are harming us? Is it possible to do so without being angry and striking back? If we are willing to change our perspective about harmful people and strongly acquaint ourselves with the desired state of mind, it is definitely possible to cultivate patience towards these people.

Towards harmful people, we can think of them as follows:
i) They are the only ones who can give us the opportunity to practise patience.
ii) They are worthy of our compassion (rather than our anger) because they are creating far more suffering for themselves in the future than for us, due to the negative karma accumulated from harming us.
iii) They are helping us to finish our negative karma forever as the real cause of the harm is our own past negative karma. And since they are only the external condition for the ripening of our negative karma, they are not to be blamed for harming us.
iv) They are also victims, like us. It is their delusion and karma that is driving them to harm us. The real source of harm is not them, but their delusions that afflict them.
v) They are merely ordinary beings and it is the nature of ordinary beings to be deluded, just as it is the nature of fire to burn.
vi) Their harmful actions arise due to causes and conditions that are beyond their control. The real source of both the act of harming and the suffering inflicted are the conditions of karma and their delusions.
vii) They do not exist inherently, just as the we do not exist inherently and our act of being patient also does not exist inherently.

Apart from the above, if we know the sufferings that anger can cause us to experience when we retailiate, and how patience can benefit us, we will certainly be able to have a calm mind even when there is harm inflicted upon us.

Source: "Path to Enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism" by Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden

Equanimity

Most of us do not have an equal attitude towards living beings. We are kinder to people we like than to people whom we dislike, and we are indifferent towards strangers. If we look deeply, we will see that we label people we like as friends because they like us, praise us, do things we like. We label people as enemies when they dislike us, criticise us, hurt us and do things we find unpleasant. As for people who have not harmed nor benefited us, we label them as strangers. In this way, we generate an uneven state of mind towards others.

Is it harmful to have such an uneven state of mind? When we "cling" onto a friend, we nourish our delusion of attachment. When we encounter our enemy, we strengthen our delusions such as anger or fear. With strangers, we generate boredom. How could our mind be happy and peaceful if we are constantly subjecting ourselves to such discriminations which generate delusions? With such a mind, it will not be feasible to develop the mind of enlightenment, Bodhicitta.

Is it possible to develop an equal attitude towards every living being? Of course, it is possible. How? By changing the way we look at living beings.

i) Consider every living being beyond one lifespan: our enemy in this life may have been our benefactor in our past lives.

ii) Recognize the impermanent nature of all our relationships.

iii) Recollect that every living being has been our mother in our previous lives and has been kind to us.

iv) Appreciate that, like us, all living beings wish for happiness and not suffering. As every living being is equally afflicted by suffering in cyclic existence, why should some deserve more of our compassion and love than others?

v) Reflect on whose view is correct if we and our enemy have equally bad perceptions about one another?

vi) Meditate on emptiness of inherent existence. Friends, enemies and strangers are labelled by our mind, in dependence on a valid basis.

Once we develop equanimity, our delusions such as attachment, anger and ignorance will naturally decrease since we have equalize the object of our emotions. In fact, we will reap its immediate benefit when we feel more relaxed and are able to put up with disagreement by people.

Sources: "Path to Englightenment in Tibetan Buddhism" by Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden and "The Essential Nectar: Meditations on the Buddhist Path" by Geshe Rabten

Cyclic Existence

What is cyclic existence? It is the 5 contaminated aggregates which arise from karma and delusions.  All beings have 5 aggregates, namely form, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness.

Cyclic existence is the experience of ordinary beings. Ordinary beings are those who have not realized emptiness of inherent existence.
Cyclic existence is not the external, material world.
Material things and environments are merely things of cyclic existence and places inhabited by beings of cyclic existence, not cyclic existence itself.

The person is also not cyclic existence.  He/she is simply someone who takes rebirth again and again in cyclic existence because he/she has the 5 contaminated aggregates, bound by delusion and karma. These aggregates are pushed uncontrollably by delusion and karma from rebirth to rebirth. As long as the wisdom realizing emptiness of inherent existence is not cultivated, delusions continue to arise without any choice, contaminated karma created, rebirths perceptuate and sufferings experienced. This is cyclic existence!

Source: "Path to Enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism" by Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden 

Causes of Delusions

What are delusions? They are states of mind which cause our mind to be unpeaceful. They are also known as afflictions, defilements, negative or contaminated minds. If we wish to develop peaceful states of mind, one way is to know what causes delusions to arise.

There are 6 factors which cause delusions to arise.

i) Latencies

ii) Sense object

iii) Bad company

iv) Wrong explanations

v) Familarity with any delusion
vi) Inappropriate attention

When our mind comes in contact with any object of the senses, certain latency or karmic potential that is already in our consciousness ripens into a particular delusion, such as anger. Without latencies and sense objects, no delusion will arise. Even a mere memory of a desirable object and the pleasurable object associated with it can trigger the seed of attachment and generate craving. Thus, whenever we encounter an object of the 6 senses, we must be mindful and alert to stop our mind from being tempted and avoid responding in a deluded way. When one realizes emptiness of inherent existence, it is possible to enjoy an attractive person without attachment and not to be angry with hateful people.

Being in the company of certain people can stimulate our own delusions. Their attitudes and behaviour can have a subtle influence on our mind. Similarly, exposure to unwholesome stories, movies, television programmes can stimulate our delusions to arise. Hence, it is important that we associate with the good people and expose ourselves to good reads etc, in order to plant wholesome seeds in our mind.

When we become familiar with a particular delusion, it will arise spontenously and effortlessly. Furthermore, allowing our mind to dwell on the desirable attributes of an object that we are attached to or the hateful characteristics of someone we dislike, will strengthen our delusions of craving and anger respectively. To overcome them, we need to apply the appropriate antidotes to the respective delusions.

Source: "Path to Enlightenment in Tibetan Buddhism" by Geshe Acharya Thubten Loden