Daily Connect: Patience and A Puppy

Abby and I got a new puppy. He's terribly cute. He's also like a 3 year old. Actually, a one year old - no real language comprehension, no potty training and I'm sure every moment is either terribly confusing or rapturously alive for the little pup.

Having a puppy looks good on paper. It looks good on holiday greeting cards. But, I've got to say, having a puppy is ex.cep.tion.ally frustrating. Especially if you're a stay-at-home-write-your-dissertation-get-your-commissioned-artwork-done-must-run-spin-and-do-yoga-mommy. And, yes, shamelessly, that would be me. I'm not gonna lie. I've lost my s&*#! at least three times this week already trying to balance it all. But then (as in then-today-oh-yeah-I've-got-a-WHOLE-mess-of-tools-in-my-Buddhist-toolbox-to-help-with-this) I realized: what a perfect way to cultivate patience. Because, my dear ones, having a puppy kinda forces you to be patient or become a mean, angry, no-so-nice mommy, friend, person, lover, soon-to-be wife. Ask Abby. I'm a stubborn learner. She has seen the not so pretty side to this not-so-hypothetical. So I brought it back old school and googled "patience, Buddhism" (yes. yes I did.) and got a delightful lesson from Pema. Read it. Really.

But here's the Reader's Digest version. (You're welcome)

The Buddhist teachings tell us that patience is the antidote to anger and aggression...When we’re feeling aggressive—and in some sense this would apply to any strong feeling—there’s an enormous pregnant quality that pulls us in the direction of wanting to get some resolution. It hurts so much to feel the aggression that we want it to be resolved.

Patience has a lot to do with getting smart at that point and just waiting: not speaking or doing anything. On the other hand, it also means being completely and totally honest with yourself about the fact that you’re furious. You’re not suppressing anything—patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.

Patience has a quality of enormous honesty in it, but it also has a quality of not escalating things, allowing a lot of space...When we examine this process we learn something very interesting: there is no resolution.

Once when I was stuck with something huge, Trungpa Rinpoche gave me some advice. He said, “It’s too big; you can’t let go of it yet, so practice with the little ones. Just start noticing all the little ways you hold when it’s actually pretty easy and just get the hang of letting go.”

The path of developing loving-kindness and compassion is to be patient with the fact that you’re human and that you make these mistakes. That’s more important than getting it right.  - Pema Chodron

And yes. I survived Bikram. Woo.

Happy Thursday loves.