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Lama Zopa Rinpoche looking at the view from Kopan Monastery, Nepal, September 2020. Photo by Ven. Lobsang Sherab.
Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter is a new book of Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on the perfection of patience, a topic Rinpoche has taught on extensively. (Perhaps this is not surprising since Rinpoche’s name “Zopa” means “patience.”) In this book, recently released by Wisdom Publications, Rinpoche gives commentary on the verses on patience in Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter “The Kindness of the Enemy:”
The traditional way for Tibetans and Sherpas to make the soles of shoes was to soften the leather using butter. Because of the stiffness of untreated leather, it could only be cut or sewn with great difficulty. Therefore it was soaked in the butter left over from butter lamps and kneaded while drying in the sun, and polished to make it soft and malleable but still extremely strong. The kneading was a bit like kneading dough, working with the feet, pulling and pushing, until it became softer. When I was very small, my first teacher who taught me the alphabet would sometimes do this while he gave me a lesson or I was reciting a text. It takes a lot of physical energy.
With the butter, the sun, and the kneading, the leather becomes workable; without them the leather would be so stiff it would be useless. Similarly, our “untreated” mind—when we are not living in patience— is stiff and useless. We need patience, and we need other sentient beings to allow us to develop that patience. The harm that somebody tries to do us, testing our patience, is like the stiff leather of our pride being kneaded. By helping us destroy our delusions like that, they are saving us from the lower realms.
In the thought-transformation text Eight Verses on Mind Training, Langri Tangpa said,
Even if one whom I have helped,
Or in whom I have placed great hope,
Gravely mistreats me in hurtful ways,
I will train myself to view him as my sublime teacher.
When Atisha was in Tibet, he had a servant, Atara, who was very bad tempered and who always caused other people to get angry. When asked why he kept him, Atisha explained that he did so in order to practice patience, for without patience you could not become a great yogi. It is very useful to think like this.
We can view any situation from many perspectives. Rather than seeing somebody who is giving us harm as the cause of our suffering, we can see them as the means for our transformation, as the embodiment of our guru, thinking that our guru has manifested in this way in order for us to develop our patience. As enlightenment is impossible without the perfection of patience, it is impossible without this person trying to harm us and thereby testing our patience. Thinking like that, we see there is no reason to become angry in return. Techniques like this make the mind malleable and able to transform more quickly. This is another benefit of patience.
Excerpted from Patience: A Guide to Shantideva’s Sixth Chapter by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, edited by Gordon McDougall, published by Wisdom Publications:
https://wisdomexperience.org/product/patience/
Watch the video series “Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Teachings on Thought Transformation during the Time of COVID-19” and find links to videos in translation, transcripts, MP3s, additional practice advice, and more:
https://fpmt.org/fpmt/announcements/resources-for-coronavirus-pandemic/advice-from-lama-zopa-rinpoche-for-coronavirus/
Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.