My mountain of a dog, Monty, is bouncing around the foyer, pawing at the door, whinnying and whining like a racehorse straining at the bit. We’ve just adopted this big guy—ninety-five pounds of pure strength and sweetness—and he’s eager to muscle his way past my legs and bound into the world beyond to lunge toward, sniff at, and pee on everything he sees.
I have been instructed by our dog trainer to practice the supreme virtue—patience—and learn how to exit the house calmly together. I’m told I must wait until Monty is quiet enough to turn his attention to me, until he sits at a respectable distance from the door, his ears release back and down, his eyes meet mine, and his breath slows to a sigh. I’m told I must relax before I can expect Monty to do the same.
During our initial attempts at threshold training, Monty bursts past me over and over, knocking me into the doorframe with the force of his exuberance. I tell him again and again to come here, sit, wait. After a while I notice my own dance of impatience starting to do a two-step in time with his. I shift with frustration from foot to foot, sighing my own exasperated sigh, mentally lunging toward the long to-do list the training is keeping me from. This is feeling like punishment, like a thing that must be endured to get to what I really want.
When the trainer points out the tightness in my face and stance, the tension in the arm and hand holding the leash, I realize Monty and I are both struggling to learn the same thing. He’s learning to feel an urge and not lunge at it; he’s learning to sit through the discomfort of not getting what he wants; he’s learning to inhabit the relaxation that rests on the other side of agitation; he’s learning to walk forth with balance into the world; and I’m learning all of this too.
Our associations with the word patience can be negative: Patience is something we’re commanded, admonished, or implored to do. “Just be patient!” we are told. In this way, patience can feel constraining; it puts us in touch with our lack of control, with not getting what we want when we want it. However, patience has a place of great honor in Buddhist teachings. In the Mahayana tradition, patience is one of the six paramitas or perfections, the qualities of mind and heart that are cultivated on the path to enlightenment. These six virtues are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. The Theravada tradition adds even more virtues to the mix. The ten paramis (Pali for paramitas) include renunciation, truthfulness, resolve, loving-kindness, and equanimity.
Each of these virtuous ways of being becomes a perfection when it is practiced not just for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all beings, as an expression of our compassion, care, and desire to be balanced and dependable people in this world. The perfections help us navigate the tidal wave of duties, pressures, and hardships we face in our inner and outer lives. Practicing these paramitas invites us to reorient our thoughts and align our behaviors with the causes and conditions of happiness for ourselves and others.
The eighth-century Buddhist monk Shantideva taught that “There is no evil like hatred, and no austerity like patience.” Indeed, patience is known as the supreme austerity. Every paramita helps us decrease the stress, diminish the hatred, and dismantle the suffering we experience, but patience has a specific quality, says the Theravada monk Ajahn Succito, and that is “to carry the heart through the turbulence of existence so that it no longer shakes, sinks, or lashes out.”
At the core of suffering is the impulse to avoid pain, the desire to grasp at pleasure, and the confusion of delusion. The mind writhes—blaming, defending, strategizing—as it recoils from pain. And it wriggles—wanting, grasping, begging—as it reaches for pleasure. But with patience steadying the sails as we cross the floods, we can meet reality as it is. Then the mind can be at ease, even if the body still aches.
Patience is, after all, the very virtue that allowed the Buddha to quietly and powerfully triumph over Mara, the personification of delusion, who tormented him with the full force of greed, fear, seduction, confusion, and doubt. The Buddha, as he sat in meditation under the Bodhi Tree, remained unswayed, fully grounded, spacious enough to contain it all. With patience, he faced Mara directly without ignoring, hiding, or turning away, showing us how patience can hold us present long enough for the mind and heart to open, soften, and awaken.
Patience is receptive and spacious, and it is also strong and powerful. Patience may be kind, but it is no doormat; it possesses the wisdom and skill to act when action is needed.
In her reflections on the paramita of patience, dharma teacher Leslie Booker says, “patience isn’t giving up our power; patience is our superpower.” Patience provides the sacred pause, the space for the deep listening that makes the next wise steps knowable.
In times of injustice, anger, or outrage, patience can both inform and fortify us. Booker states, “Practicing patience doesn’t mean that you push your anger aside, that you don’t acknowledge it or [that you] spiritually bypass it. To feel anger is an appropriate response to all of the atrocities that we face in our day-to-day lives: To be awake, alive, paying attention to what’s happening around us, brings us in direct relationship with incredibly strong emotions like rage, anger, fear, sadness, and isolation. Patience is not meant to squash you, to silence you, to make you smaller. Patience is the practice of reclaiming your nobility. Bringing patience in to support your anger can feel like a sacred pause, a deep listening as your body restores its dignity, giving you the opportunity in between thought and action to decide how you want to respond.”
Photo by george dagerotip
This sacred pause serves us well. Patience allows us to remain calm, open, dignified, and balanced in the face of hard things. As Ajahn Succito says, “When you’re stuck in a traffic jam, anxious for resolution to a crisis, or beset with a migraine, it’s good to remember that the Buddha was here too and found a way through. In an age where one is encouraged not to wait but to go faster, not to accept but to be more demanding, this parami may be the one you use most frequently to cross the flood.”
Patience supports ethical conduct by stabilizing the heart so we don’t shake, sink, or lash out when we are caught in the floods of agitation or provocation. Patience encourages perseverance, diligence, and steady effort even when our progress feels painfully slow. Patience supports generosity by allowing us to give and love freely, without the need for immediate return. It helps us stay present during meditation, enabling us to begin again and again with gentleness, instead of rebuke. And patience gives us the space for insight to blossom in its own time, unhurried. Patience supports the insight that when the mind stops fidgeting, whining, wanting, and bounding around the foyer, it becomes possible to cross the threshold.
The dharma teacher Beth Sternlieb, in her series of talks on the paramis, reframes patience as an act of devotion. The beauty and truth of that framing strikes a deep chord in me. Patience is devotion: to reality as it is; to beings (including ourselves) we vow not to harm; to the awakening that ripens over seasons, over eons. Patience is not mere endurance, it is a profound opening of the heart. It allows us to stay present in the face of difficulty so that compassion and wisdom can be what guides our responses.
In this devotional light, patience becomes love’s stamina—the commitment that keeps our heart available for the world. When I relate to patience as devotion rather than punishment, I bow to the understanding that I don’t have to be patient, I get to be.
Sternlieb reminds us that our habits of mind—skillful and unskillful, wholesome and unwholesome—have been building for millions of years. We did not invent fear, anger, and frustration in our short lifetimes; they’ve been dawning in us since our earliest evolution. Just as it has taken deep time for these states of mind to develop, it will take sweet time for them to be understood and metabolized and to lead to wisdom. Through our practice, we are participating in a vast unfolding of consciousness. Little by little, our minds and hearts are transformed. This doesn’t happen overnight. Patience is required.
The poet Mary Oliver reminds us, “Things take the time they take. Don’t worry.” Without patience, it would simply not be possible to experience the slow unfolding of our practice or the deepening of our wisdom. It is, after all, a gentle rain that waters the ground most deeply. And when patience fails in us—or in others—we can notice it, bow to it, and begin again. And again. All without scolding or rebuke.
When I relate to patience as devotion, not punishment, I am able to relax into the experience of the moment and allow patience to welcome me with its wide arms; I can accept patience’s generous offer of support. Patience, in its wisdom, is not concerned with the past or preoccupied with the future; the provenance of patience is now. Patience is the art of not rushing the seedling, the training, the healing, or the awakening. It refuses to abandon reality, it refuses to give up on enlightenment. Patience waits ever so patiently, a perfect model of itself.
Back in the foyer with Monty, I loosen my grip on the leash; it goes slack as if exhaling. Come here, sit, wait, I tell my big dog softly. I feel my feet on the floor, relax my jaw, and ease my shoulders down my back. My heart naturally lifts and opens. I am no longer rushing. I notice my nervous system’s sense of time expand. Monty sits; his ears relax back. We both sigh a sigh of release, ready now to enter our day with the energy of ease. I step over the threshold first, inviting him to follow, and we walk out into the world together, crossing calmly—one step at a time.
A Practice to Cultivate Patience
Photo by Sarah
When we practice meditation, we’re invited to return to the breath, or other object of meditation, as if we were training a dog—kindly, consistently, patiently. The mind trots off to sniff at every thought. The mind says, “Ooh, that smells good,” and we inhale more deeply. Or it says, “Ick, that smells bad,” and we wrinkle our nose with disgust. But when we notice the mind has wandered, we can smile inwardly and guide our attention back home: “Come here. Sit. Wait.” No need to yank harshly at the leash of attention—we simply practice a thousand small, gentle returns to the same spot.
In this practice to cultivate patience, we will use our impatience as the object of our meditation. Try following these steps whenever you feel the flood of impatience arising—whether you’re training your dog, in traffic, in conversation, on the meditation cushion, or anywhere at all.
1. Pause
The first step is awareness. When you feel that familiar tightening, the restless energy, that chomping at the bit—name it softly to yourself: “Impatience is here.”
Take some slow, conscious breaths to begin to ground in the body. Soften the jaw, shoulders, and belly. Feel your feet on the ground, the sensations in your body. Then set your intention. Perhaps it’s “May I use this impatience as an opportunity for practice,” or “Dear impatience, what do you have to teach me?”
2. Widen the Perspective
Notice what impatience feels like in the body, heart, and mind. A tightening in the belly? A sharp inhale and exaggerated sigh? A sense of blankness? Boredom? Frustration? Exhaustion? Notice the heat, tension, or tightness that accompanies impatience. What sensations do you feel? Can you invite any tightness to soften, any holding to release?
Ask yourself: What am I resisting right now? What am I rushing toward? What am I wishing were different? Simply asking these questions can begin to open some space around the feeling of impatience. You might also ask yourself, what would it feel like to be content in this moment?
3. Practice Compassion
Smile inwardly, relax your shoulders down your back so that the heart lifts and opens. Patience grows not through one grand effort, but through many small moments of remembering. Try being patient with your impatience.
Place a hand on your heart, if you like, and acknowledge: “This is hard. Waiting is hard. Not knowing is hard.” You may silently repeat phrases such as, “May I rest in patience. May I trust the unfolding. May I meet this moment with ease.” You might also gently remind yourself, “This might take a while.”
Offer kindness to yourself. And then, offer kindness to all beings who have experienced impatience, which is pretty much all beings, across vast stretches of time.
4. Choose the Next Wise Step
Reconnect with bodhicitta, awakened mind, and with the boundlessness and inherent patience of the bodhisattva vow: “May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my life contribute in some way to that freedom and happiness for all.” From your steadiness, see if you can cross the threshold from this moment to the next with care, calm, kindness, and the practice of patience.
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