At my Buddhist study group this morning, we mostly avoided the subject of patience in Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisatva. We have been on this chapter for years, so I'd say we win the award for patience in a certain respect, but perhaps this causes us to occasionally, as this morning, ramble on about tangential topics and only rarely manage to tack on the patience theme to what is being discussed. Were we tired? Was there an elephant in the room that no one wanted to see? I cannot know. For my own part I was tired from my trip and just returning home. However, I managed to briefly discuss two issues that I thought were right on target, only there was no enthusiasm from the teacher or others about the aspects of patience I thought these examples made obvious. Sometimes the patience is in not expecting profundity or insight at every turn. At the least, my mind was stirred in a helpful direction by my noting the meandering nature of the discussion, the lack of focus, my desire to control and direct us back to the topic (utterly hopeless - I need to mind my own mindstream) and my judgment in silently deciding this time was not well spent (who knows what the others thought?).
Of course, these fellow students and I have known each other for over twenty years, so just being in their presence is valuable. We are on the same path, we know each other's habits of mind and our histories, we trust each other implicitly. We also bore each other at times. It does not discourage us from showing up at great effort each month, and physically being in the same room has a power beyond whatever we discuss. We are supporting each other. We trust each other. We have utter patience with the group process, whatever the particular outcome is on a particular day. So I am grateful for the group, the falliable, utterly human group that we are.
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