Patience and Perseverance
A monk asked the Buddha: What is the greatest strength? What is the purest light? The Buddha said: Forbearance under insult is the greatest strength, because it harbors no harm and is also peaceful and sound; one who endures has no evil and is sure to be respected by others. When the heart's defilements are wholly ended, pure and flawless, this is the purest light. From before heaven and earth until today, of all that exists in the ten directions, there is nothing unseen, nothing unknown, nothing unheard; having gained all wisdom, one may truly be called illumined.
— Excerpted from the Sutra of Forty-two Sections Spoken by the Buddha
He who travels far does not take shortcuts; he who becomes a great vessel does not chase empty fame.
To accomplish anything truly worth doing, a person must go through hardships and expend great sweat and effort. Patience and perseverance are the endowments a traveler must have, while the vanity of the moment is forever tempting the heart. Living in a restless society, if we wish to achieve a long-term goal, we must live, in the eyes of ordinary people, with a certain humiliation—poor, obscure, unknown; no one, not even we ourselves, knows whether our goal can be reached.
The only thing we can do is persevere and endure, remaining at peace in a plain life. Endure loneliness, endure poverty, endure solitude, and walk on in silence. We may even have to endure every kind of cold mockery; faced with ridicule from family, partners, friends, neighbors, even strangers, we must grow accustomed to standing unmoved as Mount Tai. Do not retort, do not defend ourselves a hundred ways, do not let the heart churn; a faint smile suffices. If we can stay away from people—as far as possible—for entering this noisy world, beyond wasting precious time and energy, means little.
The aloofness and isolation in the eyes of the world are sometimes qualities a traveler must hold to, because in the vast sea of people there may simply be no true kindred spirit for us. We must walk alone for a long time through the long, dark night, until we reach the dawn light, before we know that our perseverance was right.
Without powerful spiritual strength, it is hard to complete a difficult journey of exploration. Most of the time in life, besides being able to comfort ourselves, there is no one else to help us; hoping for the outside world is like fishing for the moon in water or plucking flowers from a mirror. Ideals are our own, and we ourselves should be the ones to pay for them; no one has any obligation to pay for ours. When we choose a long journey, we must be prepared for this.
Reducing life and social relationships to the simplest is often, forced by reality, our most helpless yet wisest choice. For every time we hope for understanding and support, we eventually find that it may all have been no more than a fleeting illusion. From ancient times to today, few idealists have not been lonely; every idealist is a true ascetic. In the long ascetic road, only one's own lonely figure is the faithful companion that never leaves.
To realize the ideal, we must strive, must cross mountain after mountain, must meet failure after failure, must expend far more effort than ordinary people, must hold to principles ordinary people cannot hold, and must walk for a very, very long time on a road where no light is seen and the end is hard to make out. I dare say that of all the true idealists in this world, not one, walking the idealist road, can predict when he will finish his bitter journey of pursuing the dream; none is even sure he can finish it at all.
One general's fame is built on ten thousand bones; on the road west to seek the scriptures, the sands and snows hold far more bones of pilgrims than those—like Faxian and Xuanzang—who at last reached their destination and returned home.
Besides our faith, there is little else to sustain us. But with faith, we have everything, for we have grown used to living within our own conviction; the secular world beyond it we can simply look through and not see.