Chapter 6: Patience

Verses 1-10
  • The Removal of Anger
Verse 11
  • Cultivating Patience
  • Identifying the Object of Patience
Verses 12-21
  • Cultivating Patience
  • Cultivating Patience with Regard to What We Do Not Want
  • Cultivating Patience with Regard to What Brings us Suffering
  • The Patience of Accepting Suffering
Verses 22-33
  • Patience that Consists in Certainty with Regard to the Ultimate Reality of Things
Verses 34-51
  • The Patience of Making Light of What Causes Harm
Verses 52-63
  • Cultivating Patience Toward Those Who Treat us with Contempt
Verses 64-75
  • Cultivating Patience Toward Those Who Ill-Treat our Loved Ones
Verses76-86
  • Cultivating Patience When People do Good to our Enemies
Verses 87-89
  • Cultivating Patience Toward Obstacles that Prevent Us from Getting What We Want
  • Cultivating Patience Toward Obstacles that Prevent Unpleasant Things Happening to our Enemies
Verses 90-111
  • Cultivating Patience with Those who Obstruct What We and Our Friends Desire
Verses 112-118
  • Respect for Beings; Reverencing Beings, Considering Them as the Field of Merit
Verses 119-127
  • Reverencing Beings with the Wish to Rejoice the Buddhas
Verses 128-134
  • Practicing Respect for Beings
  • Thinking of the Consequences of the Good and Evil Done to Them
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Deep Dive into Patience

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche has written a beautiful book on the practice of patience, based on Shantideva's The Way of the Bodhisattva, Chapter 6.
Additional Reading
  • Patience isn't Passive, Lions Roar
  • How to Heal Your Inner Child, Lions Roar, by Thich Nhat Hanh. This kind of practice can help us to see the seeds of reactivity, often called triggers. By seeing and offering ourselves compassion, we are practicing patience and creating the conditions for greater acceptance of others.
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