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THE PERFECTION OF PATIENCE

Furthermore, a Bodhisattva stands firm in the perfection of patience. He instigates, exhorts, introduces beings to patience, in the following way: Upon taking the vow of enlightenment he puts on the armour thus: “If all beings were to hit me with sticks, clods, fists, or swords, not even one single thought of anger should arise in me; and also should I introduce all beings to such patience!”

It is as if a clever magician or magician’s apprentice had conjured up a great crowd of people: if they all hit him with sticks, clods, fists, or swords, he would bear towards them not even a single thought of anger; and if he were to introduce these magically created beings to such patience, no being at all would have been introduced to it, however many he had introduced to it.

The same is true of the Bodhisattva. And why? For such is the true nature of things that in fact they are illusory. – The Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra

Lester Levenson:

The only growth there is, is letting go of the ego. So to use this concept of happiness versus misery, every time we are unhappy, if we just assume that this has its source in the ego, we may then look for the source of the misery.

Now, looking at it is not so easy, because we must learn how to look at it. When we are unhappy, we should look within for a frustrated desire—this is the source of all misery. We had a desire, and it’s selfish. We wanted something, we couldn’t get it, and therefore we’re unhappy. So, every time we are unhappy, we should sit with it, look at it, see its source in the ego. And when you see the source of it, when you see that desire that’s being frustrated, you’ll automatically let go of it, and by doing so, you’re letting go of a bit of ego. Continue this and you’ll get full realization; you’ll eliminate the ego.

Lester Levenson (“Your Path to Happiness,” June 7, 1966, https://youtu.be/Q3m7I8C6zZQ)

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Whatever thoughts you try to push away will stick to you

At that time there was a heavenly being, a goddess, in Vimalakirti’s room who, seeing these great men and hearing them expound the Dharma, proceeded to make herself visible and, taking heavenly flowers, scattered them over the bodhisattvas and principal disciples. When the flowers touched the bodhisattvas, they all fell to the floor at once, but when they touched the principal disciples, they stuck to them and did not fall off. The disciples all tried to shake off the flowers through their supernatural powers, but they could not do so.

At that time the goddess said to Shariputra, “Why try to brush off the flowers?”

“Such flowers are not in accordance with the Teaching,” he replied. “That’s why I try to brush them off.”

The goddess said, “Don’t say these flowers are not in accordance with the Dharma. Why? Because the flowers make no such distinctions. You in your thinking have made up these distinctions, that’s all. If one who has left the household life to follow the Buddha’s Teaching makes such distinctions, that is not in accordance with the Teaching. One must be without distinctions to be in accordance with the Teaching Look at the bodhisattvas—the flowers do not stick to them because they have already cut off all thought of distinctions. Just as evil spirits are able to take advantage of a person who is beset by fear, so because you disciples are fearful of the cycle of birth and death, the senses of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch are able to take advantage of you. But once a person has done away with fear, then the five desires that arise from these senses will not be able to get at him. So long as one has not done away with all such entanglements, the flowers will stick to him. But they will not stick to someone who has eliminated them all.” (Watson, The Vimalakirti Sutra)

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Lester Levenson on Pain and Pleasure

Pain is a prod to push us in the right direction. The right direction is to know that we are masters over body and mind. The more we look in the right direction, the more we find that which is right and true, and the less the pain.

There is more pain from holding on to the thought of pain than there is in the situation itself. If you let the world strike you, it will do so less cruelly than your own imagination.

Pain in the body is the sense of heightened awareness at a point. When a part of the body is being damaged, a mental alarm is turned on, called pain. If the mind answers the alarm fully, the pain turns off immediately, and the body mechanics go to work at that point and rapidly repair it.

Because of past unpleasant experiences, we have developed a fear of pain, and mentally try to flee from it, to escape it. This is not fully answering the alarm; it causes the pain to linger, and the body repair mechanics to slow down. If one knows this, one can eliminate pain and effect a rapid healing of the body. [Since it isn’t] easy to understand what “feeling the pain” means, try increasing the pain. This mentally places one in the pain and makes one feel it. On really feeling the pain it will immediately disappear and the body will rapidly heal.

Mental pain likewise can be eliminated by recognizing it and facing it. A painful memory, when faced fully and squarely, will resolve. Because of its unpleasantness, one tries to flee from it and escape it. This holds it in mind rather than resolves it, and thereby holds onto the pain.

Levenson, Lester (1998). The Ultimate Truth. Sherman Oaks, California: Lawrence Crane Enterprises, Inc.

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The Buddha’s Discourse on the Characteristics of Things Devoid of Self-Nature

“Feeling, O monks, is not-self; if feeling were self, then feeling would not lead to affliction and one should be able to will regarding feeling: May my feeling be thus, may my feeling not be thus. And indeed, O monks, since feeling is not-self, therefore feeling leads to affliction and one cannot will regarding feeling: May my feeling be thus, may my feeling not be thus.

“What do you think of this, O monks? Is feeling permanent or impermanent?”
“Impermanent, O Lord.”
“Now, that which is impermanent, is it unsatisfactory or satisfactory?”
“Unsatisfactory, O Lord.”
“Now, that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory, subject to change, is it proper to regard that as: This is mine, this I am, this is my self?”
“Indeed, not, O Lord.”

“Therefore, surely, O monks, whatever feeling, past, future or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or lofty, far or near, all that feeling must be regarded with proper wisdom, according to the Dharma, thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.”

Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Characteristics of Things That Are Not Self. Translated from the Pali by N.K.G. Mendis (2007) (https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.mend.html)

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Meister Eckhart on confession

Whenever a man wishes to receive the body of our Lord, he may well approach without undue worry. But it is seemly and very profitable to confess first, even if one has no pangs of conscience, for the sake of the fruits of the sacrament of confession. But should a man have some compunction, and if his occupations prevent him from going to confession, let him go to his God, confess himself guilty with true repentance, and be at peace until he has a chance to go to confession. And if during this the thought or pangs of conscience for his sins disappear, he may consider that God has also forgotten them. One should rather confess to God than to man, and it is a duty to take one’s confession to God seriously and accuse oneself strictly. Nor should a man who intends to go to the sacrament lightly abandon this and leave it aside for the sake of some outward penance, for it is a man’s intention in his works that is righteous, godly and good. (Walshe, Volume III, p. 44)

The greater we ourselves feel our sin to be, the more ready God is to forgive that sin and to enter the soul to drive it out; for everyone is most eager to get rid of what hurts him most. So, the more and the greater the sins, the more immeasurably glad and the quicker God is to forgive them, the more so since they are more hateful to Him. And then, when this divine repentance lifts itself up to God, all sins have vanished in God’s abyss more quickly than I can blink an eye, and they are completely destroyed as if they had never been, provided the repentance is complete. (Walshe 2009, “The Talks of Instruction,” p. 501)