The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

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Welcome to IMC.

And what's on my mind this last few days is the topic of patience.

So that'll be the subject of this talk.

And there's a way of kind of maybe opening the door to patients

and maybe why it should be interesting, can be interesting.

There's a teaching of the Buddha that goes

something like this. Of all the goals accomplished, all the things accomplished, you'll find nothing more

beautiful than patience.

And how many of you associate patience with beauty?

But can patience be beautiful?

And that's the call, that's the possibility. And how is it beautiful? Is maybe what this talk

will kind of point to? The part of the reason why I'm focusing on patients is that I'm also focusing

on a larger list called the 10 Paramis, where

10 perfections, where patience precedes truth, the perfection of truth, the ability to be present

and see the truth clearly. And so there's something about patience that allows us to do one of the most

important tasks of Buddhism, which is to see things as they are, to see the truth. And the truth

is not often easy to see. Sometimes it's difficult to see it in ourselves. And some people don't even want to

admit some of the things they see in themselves. It takes a long time to finally say, okay, well, I guess

it's true that I'm selfish, or it's true that I'm angry, or it's true that something in my life

is not working, and I was trying to pretend it was.

...