Just imagine if only moments after waking and feeling happy our mood immediately switched because someone we live with said or did something we didn’t like. Toilet seat up/down, wrong music playing, tea too hot or cereal not milky enough.

What if all our interactions with the world around us were only a whisker away from setting us off, making us frustrated or angry. Perhaps we find ourselves saying our pet hates are slow walkers, drivers that don’t indicate or aren’t keeping to the speed limit. Maybe we even retaliate - raising our voice, dishing out insults and beeping our horns.

Is this behaviour necessary? Perhaps it’s ‘just who we are’, part of our personality, constantly saying things like, “I just don’t have the patience for this”, or, “that person is so frustrating”.

Patience can be considered to be inclusivity. The more inclusive we are, the more understanding of all the funny things that can happen to us and all the strange ways that other people behave, the greater our capacity will be to be patient with everything that goes on around us. When we’re open to all experiences without forcefully imposing our own desires on them we may very quickly find that our own state of mind is peaceful and steady and that this inner state transforms the outer situations we face.

The analogy of a cup of salty water sums up inclusivity or patience pretty well. The cup represents our capacity to love others. The salt, all the stuff that causes us to get irritated. If we have a small cup it won’t take long before we’re screwing up our faces and spitting out the salty water. However, if we have a massive body of fresh water, like one of the Great Lakes in Canada, we can chuck a load of salt in but because of the enormous capacity, we’re unlikely to even notice the saltiness.

Expand the heart, expand the mind, be open, be kind, love unconditionally.

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