The Patience Stone

Here we explore the medicine of Chapter 67 of the Daodejing by Laozi. The medicines of patience, simplicity and compassion are held here with a gentle acoustic guitar backing. Come learn the story of the Patience Stone, left for future generations by the Daoist immortal Qiu Chuji and cultivate the roundness of heart which is the result of the great practice of patience.

Transcript

Some say that my teaching is nonsense.

Others call it lofty but impractical.

But to those who have looked inside themselves,

This nonsense makes perfect sense.

And to those who put it into practice,

This loftiness has roots that go deep.

I have just three things to teach.

Simplicity,

Patience,

Compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and in thoughts,

You return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

You accord with the way things are.

Compassionate towards yourself,

You reconcile all beings in the world.

These are the words of Lao Tzu from the Tao Te Ching,

Chapter 67,

Translation by Stephen Mitchell.

So these three treasures,

Simplicity,

Patience,

And compassion,

These are three great gifts that emerge from our connection with the shu,

The emptiness field within.

Simplicity,

Patience,

And compassion.

Some words that my teacher,

Master Pu,

Would always repeat.

The Tao is simple.

The Tao is simple.

The way is simple.

It's our human mind,

Our intellectual self that likes to make things seem very complex,

Very separate.

When we're lost in the ten thousand things,

We lose the one right here within our body.

We have so many names for everything in this world.

Millions upon millions of names and separations.

But Lao Tzu would say,

Haven't we named everything enough?

Is there a way that we can return to the primal simplicity?

To live our whole life each day,

Connected to our body,

Connected to our own gardens,

Our own inner medicines.

The Tao is simple.

So when we engage in our cultivation of body,

Breath,

And spirit,

We begin to change the way our mind perceives our reality.

There's a reunification process that happens.

When we begin to grow our roots deeper and deeper into the great ocean of Shu,

We draw the nourishment from the great emptiness into our bodies,

Into our hearts,

Into our minds.

And as we go through this process,

We begin to perceive with every cell of our being the interrelatedness of every atom,

Every particle in this universe.

How each is connected to every other particle.

So there's truly no separation.

When we breathe into this understanding that there's no separation,

That truly the butterfly beating its wings in New Zealand can create a windstorm in Montana.

And each of our small actions throughout the day have an effect on the whole because we're all connected through this same web of the Tao.

We begin to live our lives from the inside out.

As we inhabit our body temple,

Each day cultivating our deeper connection with our own organ system,

The energies that flow within us,

The blood,

The fluids,

Our breath,

Our blessed breath.

We begin to experience,

Not just as a thought,

But experience every day as we're walking down the street how everything is connected to everything else.

So when we look up at that bird flying across the sky and we smile at that bird,

We can feel that bird smiling back at us.

There's a connection.

When we think of our loved one who lives a thousand miles away,

We think of that person with love sending chi hugs.

We know that that is felt on some level because we're connected through the web of the Tao.

So one of the best medicines we can cultivate at this time in our lives is the medicine of patience.

We're in a time in our world now where there seems to be a manic energy in the society.

As the springtime is emerging,

People are starting to feel more comfortable coming out of their hermit caves from this very intense year we've been living through.

And trying to remember how to find their way within the marketplace,

Within the external world.

So there's a lot of dynamic pushing and pulling.

As humanity as a whole tries to find a new way to move into our lives,

Into this world.

Not going back to the old normal.

Because the old normal wasn't that great.

The old normal way too stressful,

Too excess yang.

We're being called to find a new normal.

A balance of yin and yang,

Of activity and rest,

External and internal.

So to be aware at this time of that sense of pushing,

Needing to do things more and more,

And leaning in to life.

We want to be wary of leaning,

Whether we're leaning in or leaning out.

The idea is that we want to cultivate the upright chi in our body.

The zong chi.

Upright,

Righteous energy sometimes related to the tiger medicine.

So take a look at your life.

Feel in to whether you've been leaning in to or leaning away from the present.

And use your inner compass to adjust so that you become in alignment once again between heaven and earth.

With your shoulders relaxed,

Stable back.

Sitting stable like a mountain.

Feel that alignment so that you're right in pace with the Tao.

Right in pace with the rhythm of your life.

Not needing to force anything to completion.

And not turning away and procrastinating from that which is calling you to engage.

So developing patience with ourselves,

With our process,

With our own heart-mind.

It's one of the keys to our cultivation to become the zhenren,

The real human that we are.

There was a great Taoist immortal sage named Chokzhi.

Chokzhi lived in the time of Genghis Khan.

He cultivated in caves in the Jugnun Mountains.

In a place now called the Dragon Gate Caves.

Chokzhi's teaching was about patience.

So he lived in a cave with a big rough boulder for many years.

A small cave with this large boulder in the middle.

Each day Chokzhi would sit with this boulder and use his hands to smooth the rock.

Again and again he would sit.

This was his meditation to smooth the stone.

And after many years the stone became round and smooth like a marble.

Chokzhi left this stone for future generations as a teaching.

Saying that through patience we can smooth the corners of our own heart.

To remove the sharp edges and spikes of our own heart.

So that we become circular,

Round.

Patience.

Today you can visit Chokzhi's cave and touch the patience stone.

I was there with my teacher back in 2008.

To connect with this message left by an ancient sage.

A simple message.

Be patient with yourself.

Be patient with your own process.

Be patient with your own emerging back into this new normal.

However that looks for you.

Be patient with the mystery of all that is at this time.

And return again and again to your own best medicines within your body.

Simplicity,

Patience,

Compassion.

Body,

Breath,

Spirit.

When you cultivate this patience with yourself,

With your own process.

You begin to naturally extend this field of patience to those around you.

And this becomes compassion.

Understanding that everyone is going through their own process at their own pace.

And it's not up to us to judge or to hurry or to rush the people around us.

Just to witness from a place of the zongchi,

The upright energy.

And this way we come into our place of power and alignment.

And only from this place of power and alignment can we have a beneficial influence on the whole.

So as Lao Tzu would say,

How do I know this?

I look inside myself and see.

I look inside myself and see.

So give yourself the gift of slowing down.

Spending time each day to close your eyes,

Straighten your back,

Relax your shoulders.

Come into alignment and take a few deep breaths.

Tune into the energy that flows through your body when you listen,

When you look within.

Bringing your spiritual energy back to your body.

Bringing the yang back to the yin.

Sitting in the mystery of the shu.

The mystery of this present moment.

Simplicity,

Patience,

Compassion.

May these three words be your guiding light in these days.

May you remember to return each day to the shu.

By closing your eyes,

By looking within,

Listening within.

Breathing with the universe.

And then carrying that precious patience medicine with you as an offering for your family,

For your community,

For your ancestors,

And for all beings.

No rush.

Trust the process.

And let go.

Reviews

Practical and inspiring ✨️🙏

Wonderful

This was perfect. Thank you 🙏

That was just perfect. Simple, clear, illuminating. Plus I loved that I just listened after enjoying todays IT quote (Simplicity, patience, compassion …- Lao Tzu), and your teaching was on very same thing! Ha. 🙏🏼Thank you

Lovely

Thank you, great to have found this as I am in a space of pushing for completion on a project when I should be more patient and relaxed allowing things to unfold instead of forcing.

Namaste 🙏

Insights that resonate mind with heart, with body. A lot of Gratitude for this teaching 🙏

I'm not quite sure this is a meditation in the traditional sense, but it does contain profound wisdom and powerful guidance.

This gentle guidance is exactly what I needed this morning.
Thank you ⚘️

Thank you for this wonderful ode to Simplicity, Patience and Compassion and your reassuring words of energy, balance and alignment. Namaste 🤓🙏🏻

The pacing and the meaning really touches my heart. 🙏

Ryan I am loving the flow of your teaching, so simple such wisdom 🙏

This meditation is a wonderful way to learn and engage with simplicity, patience and compassion. The sound of the guitar, the tone of voice and the pace brought me into center. I also enjoy the teachings of Laozi. Thank you Ryan 🙏💖🙏