Patience as a Way of Bearing Witness

  • Patience as a Way of Bearing Witness

Patience as a Way of Bearing Witness

In my last blog, I wrote about the intentions behind my declaration: “I am committed to making decisions based on Love and Respect.” One intention was: “My intention is to have the patience to stay present and compassionate with myself until clarity emerges.” This inspired today’s post, where I explore patience as a practice of bearing witness.

In Buddhist mindfulness practice, patience is called khanti pāramī. Seeing patience through this lens highlights its deeper meaning: the willingness to endure, stay present, and witness experiences we may not want to feel. Khanti is one of the ten perfections of the heart, the pāramitās, which include:

  • Generosity (Dāna)
  • Virtue (Sīla)
  • Renunciation (Nekkhamma)
  • Wisdom (Paññā)
  • Energy (Viriya)
  • Patience (Khanti)
  • Truthfulness (Sacca)
  • Determination (Adhiṭṭhāna)
  • Lovingkindness (Mettā)
  • Equanimity (Upekkhā)

These qualities gradually transform the heart, creating the conditions for awakening. Cultivating patience, generosity, and determination helps release habits that fuel greed, aversion, and confusion. With this foundation, the four brahmavihāras—lovingkindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity—arise more naturally.

What Patience Teaches Us

Patience is about staying with discomfort, uncertainty, or pain without pushing it away. It also means restraining the urge to act out of avoidance or grasping. Practicing khanti has helped me:

  • Balance doing and non-doing, action and inaction
  • Discern when to wait and when to act
  • Trust my inner knowing
  • Move through discomfort without giving up
  • Meet challenges with courage and faith
  • Notice reactive impulses and respond wisely

We often think of patience in terms of its opposite—impatience—which brings restlessness, irritation, and frustration.  I learned to link the patience  to  constancy, resilience, trust, and believing.

Three Key Aspects

  1. Recognizing reactivity
  2. Enduring without losing motivation
  3. Accepting things as they are while still moving toward change

Practicing Patience Daily

  • Mindful Awareness: Observe thoughts, emotions, and sensations without judgment or the need to fix them.
  • Receiving with Kindness: Open your heart to difficult feelings with compassion.
  • Steadiness Amidst Change: Cultivate a grounded presence through the breath.

We can support our practice by drawing strength from spiritual friendships, meaningful texts, and connection to a more awakened heart–mind. Reflecting on difficulty—especially in relationships—helps us notice when our body interprets situations as attacks and transform them into opportunities for growth.

Ask yourself today:

  • Where could I benefit from being more patient with myself or others?
  • Where could staying present bring more clarity?

With time, as we move through layers of protection, we start seeing the gold in us.

With Warmth, Be

More present with your kids at school pick ups

  • More present with your kids at school pick ups

If you are a parent you can probably identify with the feeling of rushing to pick up your kids in a hurry. Probably at time still thinking about things that you will do later.

When they come to your car, how is that conversation for you? Do you enjoy it, are you able to stay present? Or is your mind answering emails, thinking about what to get for dinner, what after school activities are next?

Making it intentional

 

How would that pick-up be, if you would consciously make an intention? For example something like: that you want to be present, kind and curious with your kids?

As parents we go through the day through many different encounters and demands. When it comes to time to pick up our children our body and mind can already be stressed out by other events that happen before the pick up. Thus our ability to stay present with our children is limited to the mechanic question: how was school today?

My experience

 

I had a period when I made an intention to pick up my kids in a present, alert state of being. 

I would also  use 5 min shift and reset quick coherence technique.

the result: more at peace with what comes, less reactive, less interogative and in general better quality of presence.

Quick coherence technique

 

So what is 5 min shift and reset quick coherence technique? Hearthmath institute is a leading authority that has done extensive research on topic of the role of heart coherence. They have introduced quick coherence as one of the tools to cultivate it.

This is how you can do it:

Step 1) Focus your attention in the area of the heart.

Step 2) Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual.

Suggestion: Inhale to the count of 5, exhale to the count of 5

Step 3) Activate and experience a regenerative feeling such as appreciation or care for someone or something in your life, or something that you feel grateful for what has already happened before in your day.

So maybe if you are a parent and you are picking up your kids today, maybe this is an idea… an inspiration to make an intention how you want to be and then do a 5 min quick coherence technique to shift and reset before.

 
If you want to learn more about cultivating your heart coherence, check the 9 steps to inner peace program.