Where does your daily practice of patience that brings all this
benefit come from? How did you learn to be patient?
Ask yourself, Where did I learn this patience that I practice? I
learned it from those who have been angry at me. By depending on
the angry person I have been able to practice, to realize patience.
Therefore, all the peace and happiness that I enjoy in this and
future lives as a result of my practice of patience has come from
the angry person. It is through the kindness of the angry person,
who gave me the opportunity to practice patience, that I am able to
offer peace and happiness to all sentient beings as a result.
Because of this person I am able to accomplish the perfection of
patience, the other perfections, and thereby complete the
bodhisattvas path and attain full enlightenment. Through this
persons kindness I can eradicate all errors of mind and gain all
realizations. It is the angry person who has given me this
opportunity. This person is actually giving me enlightenment.
Through the kindness of this person I can also offer all peace and
happiness to all sentient beings. How kind this person is! How much
benefit this person has given me! This is the most precious person
in my life! Even if someone were to give me billions and trillions
of dollars, I could never buy the peace of mind that I get through
the practice of patience. Therefore, the angry person who gives me
the opportunity to practice patience is of much greater value than
trillions of dollars, mountains of diamonds, acres of
gold.
The angry person is even more precious than trillions of wish-
fulfilling jewels. The most precious material object we can think
of in these examples is the wish-fulfilling jewel. Legend has it
that by praying to this mythical gem, you get whatever sense
enjoyment you desire. Nevertheless, the angry person with whom you
practice patience is far more valuable than trillions of these
wish-granting gems. No amount of material wealth can bring you the
inner peace that you can achieve by practicing patience with an
angry person. Thats why such people are so precious.
Anyway, in order to practice patience, you need an angry person. As
the great bodhisattva Shantideva pointed out in his teaching, the
Bodhicharyavatara, the Buddha isnt angry with you, so you cant
practice patience with him. And a doctors only thought is to help
you, so theres no opportunity there either. Similarly, your
friends arent angry with you, so theres no chance to practice
patience with them. Therefore, if theres nobody angry at you,
theres no opportunity to put into practice the teachings youve
received from the Buddha and your gurus. Thats why the angry
person is most kind, precious and indispensable in your life, you
can see how much more precious the angry person is. The benefits of
practicing patience are infinite.
We always want in our life someone who loves us. We feel that this
is important for our happiness. But you can see now that its much
more important to have in our life someone who doesnt love us,
whos angry at us, so that we can practice training our minds. As I
mentioned before, if you dont have such a person, if you dont
train your mind, then even if you do find a friend, theres the
danger that through lack of patience, youll turn your friend into
an enemy.
Therefore, to maintain harmonious relationships with others, to
keep your friends, you have to practice patience. To lead a happy
and successful life, you almost have to train yourself like a
soldier preparing for battle. Soldiers train before marching off to
war. You need to do the same. Training your mind by practicing
meditation on patience is the way to prepare yourself for the
battles of daily life. Leaving aside the happiness of future lives
or that of other sentient beings, even for the happiness of this
life, you have to practice patience.
The happiness and difficulties we
experience every day come from our mind. Whatever were
experiencing at any given moment is dependent upon the way we
think, our concepts, our attitude. Our attitude determines how we
feel.
