Dzigar Kongtrul - Peaceful Heart: The Buddhist Practice of Patience

A few years ago, I was in Varanasi, India, an ancient city on the Ganges that is considered holy in several religious traditions, including Buddhism. Every day at dusk, thousands of pilgrims come to take part in a Hindu ceremony in which they make offerings to the river to wash away their sins. One evening, I was part of the immense crowd returning from the ceremony when I noticed many people in a certain area having an intense reaction of shock and concern. When I got closer, what I saw made my heart leap out of my chest. On the pavement, in danger of being trampled, was a tiny infant, not much bigger than a melon, lying on a thin cloth. The parents had placed the baby there to attract alms. The baby was wide awake, moving, naked. My heart filled up with concern for this child. Then I realized all the people around me were reacting in the same way. All our hearts were completely occupied by concern.

What accounted for this strong common response? No one would have paid much attention to a baby doll on the ground. But this was a living beingan innocent child in a dire and painful situation, so vulnerable, so much in need of protection, stability, and improved conditions. The baby was no different from the rest of uscapable of experiencing comfort, joy, and happiness as well as discomfort, pain, and suffering. It took no time for every witness to process this. We all knew instantly that the baby was just like us, which triggered our feelings of deep warmth and care. I saw this as a reflection of the basic tenderness of heart we are all born with.

Though it is often invisible, our tender heart is with us at all times, always with the potential to come into the open and connect us to our world. The sight of the baby was an extraordinary circumstance that brought out this potential in all the witnesses. But even when were not presented with such a compelling scene, we always have the basis for tenderness in our heart. We have the capacity to feel love toward all living beings, to care about their needs and their happiness just as much as we care about our own. This innate quality of a warm, open heart is known in Tibetan as tsewa. This is the main subject of my previous book, Training in Tenderness, but here I would like to say a little more about it, especially in terms of how it connects to the practice of patience.

For most of us in these modern times, life is full of busyness, drive, and speed. When we are caught up in this outer activity day and night, it is difficult to connect deeply to ourselves and others. Unless we want to stay in this disconnected state, we need to find some gaps in day-to-day life where we can pause and look within. These are opportunities to ask ourselves some basic, but indispensable, questions: What am I trying to achieve? Why? What am I so fixated on? Why? What exactly goes on inside me, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day? What do I feel? What is my view of life? What are my greater aspirations?