Patience

With palms together


Good Morning Everyone,



Life has its ways of demanding that we pay attention.



After three refrigerators and several repairs of refrigerators, it seems the refrigerators were not the problem, but the receptacle in which they were plugged was faulty. My chess rating was three hundred points higher than it is now and I just got beat twice by someone who was likely ten years old and who behaved like it. When bills are not paid, someone will try to collect on them. In each case, someone was not paying attention and in the end some sort of bell was invited to ring.



What is interesting to me is the sound of that bell.



Is it a soft and gentle bell, a loud bell, a sharp and jarring bell? What are my responses to these bells?



Last night I offered a dharma talk on the kshanti paramita, that is, the perfection of patience. When we practice patience, we must open ourselves and allow the bell, of whatever type, to ring. We must allow the bell to teach us.



When beaten by a brat was I a brat in return? Did bratness trigger bratness? And when I learned I needed to pay much closer attention to who owes what to whom and when, how did I respond?



When we practice mindful patience, there is only the moment in which we are in. We practice to open that moment and reside fully and completely there. Self falls away and our presence is available completely to, and for, the situation. Internal dialogue becomes a teacher. What are we saying to ourselves? Can we see it, experience it, accept it? Can we smile at ourselves, forgive ourselves, and gently take whatever action is necessary?



May many bells continue to ring

Their sweet sound

Is everything.