A Portrait in Patience

My family calls me Pancho and I'd like you to know that I love you all.
 
Hermana Pavi has the virtue to amplify inspiration, poetry and magic. This is not the first time I've seen how her work produces an avalanche of love. She is the kind of writer, and human being, who gently whispers into the ear of our inner child: "C'mon, let's play! Compassion, courage and wisdom is fun!"
 
I surrender every time I hear her (and her family's) spirit way of talk/write/silence. Thank you hermana Pavititita :-)
 
These images here are beyond powerful:

"Patience is a kind of understanding. An understanding that transcends the 'limitations' of the moment. It's a teacher standing at the blackboard repeating A is for Apple. B is for Boy. Day after day to small puzzled faces. Because she believes that one day they will make the leap that connects the sound to the letter the letter to the word the word to the shiny red contours of a classic fruit. Patience is a kind of trust. A trust that does its part and holds the rest lightly in an open palm. It's a farmer sowing seeds in springtime. Hoeing, watering, weeding. Because he believes the earth will do her part when the time comes. And Patience is a kind of acceptance. An acceptance that allows for doubt. It's a friend who holds your hand when you're not sure of the next step. Because no matter which way you go she'll come with you. Patience is a kind of love. A love that is its own explanation in bewildered circumstance. It is an old, old woman placing a wrinkledparchment hand against the cheek of a reckless child. Because her heart is too wise to make room for reproach. Too full to find place for offence."

As usual, the muse Pavi have sparked the writer in me...

1. Patience is a kind of compassion.
2. Patience is a kind of courage.
3. Patience is a kind of wisdom.

1. Patience is a kind of compassion.
Because all of us are one as if the Grand Human Family were a grand human body with all its trillions of cells. When one inflicts suffering on others, one is bringing suffering on oneself.

2. Patience is a kind of courage.
Feeling and thinking always about the well being of all–including the British people– to achieve independence, Gandhi spent 2,338 days in jail. It seems that Gandhi had an incredible patience to launch serious civil disobedience campaigns every ten years: Satyagraha in South Africa, Non-Cooperation campaign in India, The Dandi Salt March and Quit India!

3. Patience is a kind of wisdom.
The nonviolent soldier of Islam, and one of the closest collaborators of Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan said: "If I can summarize nonviolence in one word it would be Patience." To say this when he spent about half of his life (~49 years!) in jail or forced exile, requires a sever doses of Vitamin "P": patience. A masterwork of the Universal Love.

Patience is a kind of wisdom that it is everywhere in the Cosmos. Ourselves are the result of a ~14 billion year masterpiece.

Over the years, I've been using references to the Grand Canyon as a way to stress patience and our individual and unique contributions. I read about the canyon, know the scientific facts, saw plenty of pictures, understood the geological process involved in its formation, surfed the internet  but never been physically there. Yesterday, my perspective was reinforced forever when I smelled the the Grand Canyon. I was humbled by the beauty of it and reminded that the love force, the soul force, works in a slow but powerful way. One small step at a time. Another kind molecule of water, another generous photon from a star, another courageous molecule of air, coming and going, kissing the sediments of the blueprint of humanity to expose and rejoice the colors of our moral grandeur and spiritual audacity...

May our lives be devoted to service of the Earth Community Canyon.
 
May all become compassionate, courageous and wise.
Pancho

I was explaining patience to someone this week, and this passage does a much better job! I loved the poetic approach. Especially these lines: "Patience is a kind of love. A love that is its own explanation in bewildered circumstance. It is an old, old woman placing a wrinkled parchment hand against the cheek of a reckless child."

Patience seems to be both a decision and an outcome. As a decision, it is the old woman knowing deep within that all is well, and the reckless child will be fine and beyond anyone's control. It is the old woman's harnessing of her deepest wisdom and picking an alternative from a space of freedom, not desperation. When such decisions have been made over and over, through committed practice, patience becomes a state-of-being, where there isn't a second thought given to it. We are not doing it, we are it.

Patience is the manifestation of withholding of judgment. I loved this too, "Patience is a kind of trust. A trust that does its part and holds the rest lightly in an open palm."

The sibling of patience is acceptance. A wise one once told me that the real sign of progress was in the level of acceptance one displayed of others, where one was equanimous with what is in front.

How do I know if I'm being a dullhead accepting what should not be accepted? I've found that wholesome acceptance has been accompanied by love, at a level that is unmistakeable. Dullheaded acceptance, on the other hand, has no expansion associated with it; rather, I've noticed fear.

Loved the previous reflections.

adding on to the reflections on meditation that Nikki started, i agree -- Though it isn’t its primary raison d’être, meditation is a perfect training ground for developing patience. Take being aware of the breath -- an invaluable tool in meditation. But even if we try meditating with the breath for five minutes , we quickly see how unstable our attention actually is. As a new meditator, it can feel hopeless -- mere seconds go by and the mind is already lost in some memory or day dream, gone for many minutes at a time. We might find that the mind actually wanders much faster in meditation than it does in our more everyday experiences (like say, reading a book). And that’s because everything is magnified in meditation. It’s designed to be that way, so that awareness can sharpen and refinement can happen at a subtler level of mind. Over years of practicing, I came to experience the principle at play here: when things realign at the core, this transformation ripples upward from the depths to the surface, and outward into the rest of our lives. So each time we realize that the mind is no longer focused, that realization presents us with an immediate opportunity to practice a new way of being. And that opportunity can only come alive  -- with a heart of patience.

Wrote up a much longer piece recently on this.

all in all, awesome passage, wonderful recording, and great comments ... melissa, regarding the male/female energy, turns out the author is also female :-)