Could Try Harder

The next two Perfections are patience and diligence. I think of the first two, generosity and ethics, as largely facing outwards as they influence our relationship with others. These two on the other hand I feel are a bit more about how we are in ourselves. How we handle emotions and motivate ourselves.

Patience

As with all terms translated from Sanskrit or Tibetan there is no perfect match. Along with patience, forbearance or endurance are sometimes used. However, for me these three terms are quite different. Forbearance suggests bearing something while holding back, perhaps confronting a particularly annoying relative there is no point in falling out with, and endurance suggests more of a putting up with something painful which is weighing down on us. It could be a bully, an impossible situation or a hateful task we are compelled by external circumstances to complete. Both harbour the secret hope that things will change. Both can feel angry beneath the surface. I’m sure each of us has our own examples. Patience on the other hand sounds like it is at peace with itself. Patience is not compelled by something external, it’s a place of acceptance where we can rest in ourselves, not at war with who we find ourselves to be or the situation we find ourselves in. Patience is calm, collected. Within the Buddhist tradition three kind of patience are explored:

Patience with others

We all know how challenging we are to each other and how painful it is when someone fails to see and hear us in the way we would wish. And then there are the situations where someone intentionally seeks to hurt us in some way - backbiting, envious attacks, making us feel small. Here, what enables patience, is not being a master at masochism, but rather our ability to respond rather than react. If our mindfulness of our emotions is strong enough, these shitty ways of being treated, may just not trigger us. We see it, know what's going on, but also have the space in ourselves to find the best way to deal with it. Patience has a lot of non-reactive space within it which is not the same as being a doormat or a victim.

Patience with our spiritual practice

Well, this one speaks for itself. If acceptance of what is arising is at the heart of our practice then the kindness in patience is going to be necessary. Having practiced and taught mindfulness for over twenty-five years I have observed that it is extremely common to become frustrated with our meditation when it does not match our fantasy of what it should be like. Most of us start out thinking it should be about a calm mind and are dismayed when this does not happen. However, what it really is about is cultivating equanimity which means, whatever our experience that is OK. No picking and choosing. Clear and calm meditation or distracted meditation - both good. In this context patience is an essential aspect of our training in the ‘doing nothing’ style of practice. This is the hardest thing of all and we will inevitably spend years learning to relax and let be. Which is going to require an ocean of patience.

Patience with what turns up

This one is about life generally. We are not in control of events and whether we fight with this or learn to go with the flow will have big implications as to whether we are happy or not. Being a bit of a control freak I know this from bitter experience. This also connects with the idea of emptiness that as we go on is going to play a big part. Emptiness means things are always changing, there is nothing that we can hold on to and it remain the same. Whether this be who we think we are or the life around us. On the other hand this does make life ungraspable, spontaneous, continually arising and slipping away - in fact full of life. Patience creates the space and acceptance to relax into this amazing helter-skelter of being. And one more turn. Patience implies trust. Being patient implies a trust that things will unfold - at least one way or another. It also involves giving up on hope and fear …. hmmm.

Diligence

Like patience, diligence has other translations - exertion, vigour, effort, application, energy. I like this one because there’s paradox at the heart of it. On the one hand our engagement with the path requires all of these qualities but the moment we rest in a doing nothing style of practice they must all be dropped immediately. However, what I have discovered in myself is more or less the opposite. I am generally very lazy and then when I attempt to rest in awareness I instantly become very busy. It’s a thing. If we are going to differentiate this perfection more carefully then it’s important not to muddle it with ‘being on the run’, being driven by semi-conscious anxieties that make us somewhere other than where we are. This is definitely not about being a Dharma workaholic or a spiritual obsessive. Both run counter to the spacious acceptance that we discover in patience and the general atmosphere of kindness that permeates all the perfections. So ofter this collection of behaviours and attitudes is linked to ‘getting somewhere’ but here they are employed to remain just where we are, present with what is. That said, the Dharma is a path and it takes a certain type of engagement to stick at it. My feeling is that if we try to do this using our will, while it may work a bit, there is a danger that we will then alienate that part of us that doesn’t want to go anywhere. Better, to notice our resistance and include it on the path as one of our ‘beautiful monsters’. This way diligence becomes a way of hearing ourselves and not an external authority saying, as all my school reports did, ’Could try harder’.

NW. 24 November 2025