Peaceful Heart
The Buddhist Practice of Patience
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A leading Buddhist teacher revisits Shantideva’s The Way of the Bodhisattva to offer an introductory guide on cultivating patience and opening your heart to difficult circumstances
In the Buddhist tradition, “patience” is our mind’s ability to work positively with anything that bothers us—a vast spectrum of particulars that all boil down to not getting what we want or getting what we don’t want. Those who have mastered patience have learned to welcome all challenging situations, people, and emotions as opportunities to open their hearts rather than close them.
In fluid, accessible language, Dzigar Kongtrul expands on teachings by the ancient sage Shantideva that contain numerous powerful and surprising methods for preventing our minds from becoming consumed by what bothers us—especially in anger. The result of practicing patience is a state of mind where we can feel at home in every situation and be fully available to love and care for others. Patience is the lifeblood of a peaceful heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this short but powerful work, Kongtrul (It's Up to You), a Tibetan Buddhist lama, teaches ways of finding peace and patience in a flawed world. Kongtrul starts by explicating the destructive power of anger which even in small amounts, he writes, can nullify efforts toward generosity and goodwill and elaborates on the causes of mental disturbance, including not getting what one wants and getting what one doesn't want. He then recommends practices and techniques inspired by the work of eighth-century Indian philosopher Shantideva for reducing aggression and building patience, such as meditations on giving up control and a list of "seventy-two ways we get disturbed." Kongtrul skillfully weaves together the writings of Shantideva with Tibetan folktales and personal anecdotes (such as how cutting down trees to contain a forest fire in Bhutan reminded him that one must "let go of attachments" to control "the fire of anger"), and makes even abstract recommendations accessible, as with his description of the practice of sitting with pain as "simmering." Buddhists will appreciate Kongtrul's ode to Shantideva, but even non-Buddhist readers will enjoy this powerful work's vivid writing and wise instruction.
