patience

As a society, we live in times where we expect almost everything to be instant. It's an era of instant gratification. Whatever our desire, that desire can be met straight away.

This immediacy of modern life has received a great boost through the internet, which provides information flows that were previously unthinkable, and of course, the smartphone which people carry with them the whole time. It's there, a constant companion day and night. And that allows not only immediate access to the internet, but of course, communication as well, immediate communication with any of our friends or contacts.

In these ways, we have come to live in a world where we tend to unconsciously expect everything to be immediate. And when we actually have to wait a few minutes for something, it's rather challenging. So, as a society, we have rather lost patience. And that's a pity because some things do still take time. And especially on our spiritual journey, it is well worthwhile developing patience.

When we start out in the spiritual world, quite often we get some amazing early experiences – enough to encourage us. Then, though, typically, things seem to slow down. It is as if progress stops. And there are reasons for this. In the end, our spiritual journey is not about progress at all. But whilst we're still living with that mindset, of achievement, of a goal, of progress towards the goal, whilst we're living that way, it's as if we need some milestones, some tick marks, some intermediate achievements, to feel good about ourself and to give us confidence in our direction.

However, our deeper spiritual growth is something that cannot be rushed. It has its own tempo, its own time frame. And typically, for significant growth, deepening into our spiritual essence, this exploration, this endeavour, takes many years. If I had to put a number on it, I would pluck twenty years out of the hat, as an example. This is just to give a flavour of the sort of time frame involved. And so we need patience, patience which other aspects of our life probably do not demand of us.

If you want to actively develop some patience, then you can practice in any situation where you feel you're having to wait: it could be waiting for a bus, or sitting at a traffic light in your car, waiting for it to turn green. It could be when you're waiting for someone to call you, or waiting for a particular piece of news. Whenever you find yourself waiting, it's an opportunity to develop your own patience.

To do this, just bring awareness to the impatient feeling in you. that feeling of urgency that's inside yourself, the feeling that you're wanting to get somewhere, that you're needing something now and it's not quite here yet. All of this is a certain agitation in the system. You might feel your body slightly tense. You might find yourself slightly irritable. Take these opportunities of impatience to really look inside yourself, to bring full awareness to that impatience.

And awareness is an amazing medicine. If you bring your full awareness to your irritation, to that feeling of annoyance, immediately it will lose its grip over you. That's not to say it will disappear immediately, but its power will be greatly diminished. And you can also try some deep breathing during these moments of impatience, seeing if you can encourage a calmness to return.

You might also take a moment to look around you and really notice something that you've not been noticing. It could be a tiny thing. It could be an insect crawling on the bus shelter whilst you're waiting for that bus. Life is full of small gifts that we can be absorbed with and enjoy, as long as our mind is not obsessing about something else, whatever that thing is that we are waiting for. It's not having to wait, that's the problem. It's that our mind is obsessing during that waiting time, demanding that thing to be delivered to us. If we use that time more enjoyably, just by bringing our awareness to something else, this sense of patience will develop.

These are just a few hints, a few suggestions of things to try, in order to develop patience. In any case, it's an attribute or an attitude that is going to be needed on the spiritual path.