Date: 04/12/2025 04/13/2025
Location: Star Lake Meditation Center
Teacher: Shilin Long
Dharma Knowledge
The Practice of Patience and Forbearance
In Buddhist practice, patience and forbearance are often misunderstood as weakness, passivity, or submission. Many people associate them with suppressing emotions, enduring injustice, or sacrificing oneself in silence. Genuine practice of patience, however, is not numb endurance, but a form of mental training that is lucid, powerful, and deeply transformative. It is not an avoidance of conflict, but a direct encounter with it; not a denial of feeling, but freedom from being ruled by feeling.
Patience is essential because it directly counteracts anger. Anger is not merely an emotional reaction, but a forceful resistance rooted in the belief that “things should not be this way” or “I should not be treated like this.” When reality clashes with expectation, anger arises swiftly. If allowed to dominate, it drives speech and action into excess, often leaving damage and regret. The practice of patience trains the mind at precisely this critical moment, preventing it from being swept away by its first impulse.
True patience is not about pushing anger down, but about clearly seeing it. When anger arises, the practitioner learns to pause and observe the tension in the body, the change in breath, and the narratives forming in the mind. Through this honest awareness, anger shifts from being a command demanding immediate action to a phenomenon being known. This shift is the core strength of patience in practice.
The practice of patience also involves deep observation of the sense of self. Much of what feels unbearable does not come from events alone, but from threats to self-image, identity, or dignity. Being ignored, misunderstood, or disrespected often intensifies suffering far beyond the situation itself. Patience does not deny self-worth; rather, it reveals that the true pain lies in clinging to the need to be affirmed. When this attachment is seen and loosened, external insults lose much of their power.
It is important to clarify that patience is not passive submission. In Buddhism, patience never requires abandoning wisdom or principles. When facing injustice or harm, patience does not exclude clear communication, firm boundaries, or appropriate action. The distinction lies in whether action arises from clarity and compassion, or from anger and revenge. Patience ensures that action is not hijacked by emotional reactivity, not that action disappears.
In the course of practice, patience often proves to be the most difficult and most authentic training. The calm of meditation does not necessarily translate into resilience in daily life. The real testing ground appears in relationships, conflicts, and moments of challenge. It is precisely there that practitioners encounter their habitual patterns and have the opportunity to embody the teachings in lived reality.
As patience deepens, it gives rise to inner spaciousness. When the mind no longer rushes to defend or retaliate, space naturally opens. Within this space, one begins to perceive the fear, confusion, and suffering of others, not merely their offensive behavior. This understanding is not an excuse for wrongdoing, but a release from fixation on opposition. A spacious mind is better able to respond with precision and strength.
Over time, practitioners discover that patience primarily liberates themselves, not others. Each moment in which anger is not obeyed becomes an experience of stepping out of an inner prison. Far from eroding dignity, patience frees one from vulnerability to emotional manipulation and external control.
Ultimately, the practice of patience is not about becoming someone who can endure everything, but about becoming someone who is free. When external conditions no longer dominate the inner world, and pain no longer automatically turns into hostility, life gains resilience and depth. In this sense, patience is not retreat, but one of the most solid and noble strengths on the path of practice.
