With respect,
Good Afternoon Everyone,
Patience. It’s a wonderful thing, I think, but do I actually know it is so? Not really. I try to practice patience, but whenever I do its like other things Buddhist, I feel as though I am pretending. This is not correct, as our Japanese or Korean Masters would be quick to tell us. Paramitas, like the precepts, come from the inside out.
We say, “just be” the paramitas, fine, I should “just be” patience. Right. There are times, more often than I care to admit, that I am simply unable to “just be” anything approaching an “excellence,” I am just the person I am in the moment I am. From that point of view, that has to be enough.
Perhaps I am impatient, hurt, or angry. Perhaps sad, depressed, or jealous. The most important point is to be aware while not holding onto the feeling or thoughts about the feeling in the moment itself. This is authenticity.
We know from cognitive therapy that thoughts, feelings, and behavior are interconnected. Changing a behavior affects a thought or feeling. This lends much credence to the old saying, “fake it till you make it.” So, it doesn’t matter all that much, from this perspective, if we are faking patience, what matters is that we do patience and examine ourselves in the process. In the process itself, we become patience and sooner or later it becomes authentic.
Be well.
Good Afternoon Everyone,
Patience. It’s a wonderful thing, I think, but do I actually know it is so? Not really. I try to practice patience, but whenever I do its like other things Buddhist, I feel as though I am pretending. This is not correct, as our Japanese or Korean Masters would be quick to tell us. Paramitas, like the precepts, come from the inside out.
We say, “just be” the paramitas, fine, I should “just be” patience. Right. There are times, more often than I care to admit, that I am simply unable to “just be” anything approaching an “excellence,” I am just the person I am in the moment I am. From that point of view, that has to be enough.
Perhaps I am impatient, hurt, or angry. Perhaps sad, depressed, or jealous. The most important point is to be aware while not holding onto the feeling or thoughts about the feeling in the moment itself. This is authenticity.
We know from cognitive therapy that thoughts, feelings, and behavior are interconnected. Changing a behavior affects a thought or feeling. This lends much credence to the old saying, “fake it till you make it.” So, it doesn’t matter all that much, from this perspective, if we are faking patience, what matters is that we do patience and examine ourselves in the process. In the process itself, we become patience and sooner or later it becomes authentic.
Be well.
2 comments:
Hi, Harvey, I think we're on the same page :)
Such a book!
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