Dear Friends,
We’ll spend the last few days of this month with the talk by Kamala Masters titled, “The Power of Patience.”
Kamala starts out by saying that patience is of the qualities that’s “so basic and humble that we often underestimate their power.” She also says, “it’s such an important part of our home life, and such an important part of our life on the cushion.”
Kamala related that there were times when her teachers might sense she was falling into the future, and they would remind her, “the path to peace is paved with patience.”
That’s a hard reminder, isn’t it? I remember old dial up internet, and waiting for a file to download – and it might have taken an hour or more… Now, if a video doesn’t play in an instant, forget it! I’m on to the next thing.
I see impatience in my practice sometimes too. “Self-judgment, again! Didn’t I already deal with this?”
I’ve heard teachers mention that the Dalai Lama talks about looking at your practice in terms of decades. Kamala said that some of her teachers in Burma talked about lifetimes of practice… And she shared this reflection from Munidraji, when she would ask him if he was impatient: “My path is not yet finished.”
So that’s a good thing to know, when self-judgment or other difficulties arise. We need to have that long view of our path of practice.
Guided meditation: Here’s a guided meditation on patience from Kate Munding, about 40 minutes.
https://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/305/talk/56531/
Feel free to share your reflections or comments below, or by email. (I’m on retreat this weekend, so I won’t be able to respond until later on Sunday.)
With warm wishes,
Andrea