Ode to Patience

Someone in a book struck out:
--That reams are written about Love, 
But no poetry around and about,
Extolling Patience, Lord Above!
Is it not Patience,  
that allows Love to stand;
that lends Love cadence;
through Time, Change and stranger land?--

I am caught. 
Looking at this, trying to understand...
Without it, Love is naught?
How is Patience playing its hand? 
Then like a burst of fragrance 
From freshly picked Jasmine 
Pervading the air with its essence,
I hear Patience's violin. 

This is not just,
Accepting petulant demands--
Or learning to adjust
with mercurials  and quicksands.
Patience is not just about,  
being a survival acrobat 
Although without a doubt 
There is something to all of that.

Because, there is something beyond 
and something underneath,
That moves a soul to respond 
In those ways; a force under-sheath. 
The same someone¹ from the same book², 
quotes Buddha, The Infallible: 
"When you are walking, walk. 
When you are sitting, sit. Dont wobble."

A Patience then, that is larger, 
Is love's force, within. 
Resting in even, steady temper-
Even as life decides to get into a tailspin.
A patience that lives deep,
Gushing an eternal, holy spring
Allowing love that is asleep
To walk, sit, breathe; without wobbling. 

The very breath and heart of Love, 
The mountain lake's tranquil depth,
A sheath of staying power and resolve -
And velvet strength, 
Covering Vivekananda's³ nerves of steel
Even taking forms of obstinacy or indulgence
Wait, this is necessity's veil 
To what we call Patience, a visceral intelligence. 

That which is in rhythm,
with Nature's forces,
with the Universe's algorithm;
so made stronger than Arjuna's⁴ horses;
Passion also its aspect,
directed by untainted endurance.
Inexplicable to the intellect,
Is this formative Patience.

Absorbing into itself, everything.
Life's ripples subside,
Like there were no ripples, nothing. 
Humour then is implied,
For staying with suffering
without struggle or escape --
Just an attention that is unwavering,
That transforms life's landscape.

Who then can remain still and steady,
Resting effortless, with ease.
And yet ripe and ready,
flowing along with life's whimsies.
(S)he then is the true 'patient',
Diving into the spring's sacred source.
A civilisation ancient;
Giving birth to Love, being life-force. 

Love then breathes, 
a deep, fine, smooth breath --
that regenerates, creates, soothes;
Reviving a shibboleth.
All creation being its category,
Giving life, giving vibrancy, romance.
Yet another story,
Thus my ode to patience. 

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Dedicated to all those in my world who live this ode by example. These are after all, words. They are dull in the face of the actual. 

^{1, 2} The Book is "Take Your Time". And the Someone is Eknath Easwaran
³ Swami Vivekananda
⁴ Arjuna, one of the Pandavas in the epic, Mahabharata

How can the Ordinary be Extraordinary?

How can the ordinary be extraordinary as well? Simply by the quality of one's attention.  I tried to immerse myself in it, when I encountered such an attentive quality recently. 

Scene: A moderately-big^ photocopying / DTP works-binding-printing establishment in the city.

At the outset, he was yet another young guy from a small town, come to the city for work. He looked it.  I waited for a while by the photocopier machine before he came to attend to me.  I had two entire books to be photocopied and he finished with two others before he came to me, although I had come earlier.  Some typical leg-tapping had begun at my end.  I had also by then slotted him, "he attended to the men first; he is so young, looks barely 20, he's going to mess up my photocopies; he's got a cell phone that he is constantly checking on, how usual!"  I realised later that although my initial impression of him being from a small town was correct, that was also a stereotyping that I'd indulged in.  

So initially when he started the machine for my work, I kept shifting from one foot to the other and checking my phone (to look at the time of course!). After about less than a minute of this, he turned to me and smiled and said (in Tamil*), "those two people had only a couple of papers each and so I finished theirs first."  

I was arrested by two things.  First, I was ashamed that I hadn't noticed this myself because I had been too caught up in my own typecasting.  Second, his eyes.  He looked right into my eyes, directly and openly.  He had such clear eyes, such depth and stillness in them. By this time, he had already tuned into his task again, and I tuned into him.  Really looked at him. And was thoroughly mesmerised by how he was doing what he was doing. He had in the beginning itself punched some keys on the keypad to indicate standard number of copies and page dimensions and so on.  (And I realised at this point that I had been watching all this like a hawk for any mistakes!).  Now I just started to simply watch. 

Since it was not a completely automated process, he had to key in something after the machine spit out the required number of copies of each page.  He had to turn to the next page, put it face down on the fibreglass top, and adjust its orientation before closing the lid and punching the keypad. This went on continuously.  After every few pages that were copied, the screen would have moved and changed angle because of the way he was tapping the keypad (on the touch-screen), and he would move the screen back to its original position.  In a while I saw that it was exactly after 10 pages that he did this.  (I dont know whether he kept count)  Every 2-3 pages, he would check the page number of the photocopies that had just come out and the page number on the original before flipping to the next page.  Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch, Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch, Check-Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch... If ever I've seen mechanical work done in style, it was this instance.  He executed that whole sequence so gracefully, that the yoga practitioner in me saw a perfect, smooth, seamless and flowing vinyasa krama** in action.  It was utterly rhythmic and hypnotic. 

This was not all.

The pictures have been taken and put up here
with his consent

In the middle of this steady pulse, there was a stream of phone calls that he attended to.  I realised by and by that he was in charge of the shop's cell phone and he was handling enquiries!  He answered an irate caller who didn't know the location of the shop; I could hear the irritated voice asking for directions, standing more than 2 feet away.  He gave some rates and tariffs to another person. and so on.  Without missing a beat - in his hands, or his eyes or his voice and smile.  I mean, he was obviously not in the middle of a toothpaste commercial - he was not smiling actively, and yet his face was a restful smile.  

This was not all.  

He also seemed to be in charge of other things in the shop. He seemed to have in his purview, two new boys handling other machines in the shop, and he was instructing someone else to go and check up on one of them who has not had the requisite training yet.  He also at some point, asked the person at the neighbouring machine, to go sit on some computer and handle work there since that person had taken leave today.  I have no clue how he knew what was happening right behind him (maybe he was listening to everything happening around him), but just as a customer was going to go to that empty computer station, asking for some particular service, he turned and redirected her to someone else.  He was also completely aware of what was happening at the delivery counter and the finished jobs that were coming there to be stapled and handed over to the right person, after the payment was made. (The payment counter was exactly behind him and I was also sort of standing there). 

Some things that came to me later: I believe now that his eyes and how he looked at me the first time changed the quality of attention I was giving to the present moment, the task at hand and the people in the present moment (because of his own attentive quality). I also realised that early on, he had pointed out the obvious without any judgement of me, or any resentment, or chip-on-the-shoulder attitude; just a clear, non-attached statement. 

I had to take his autograph

His attention was everywhere in the shop I realised, and yet his attention was also on the minutest detail of the task in his hand.  How did he catch it otherwise - that one time when he flipped two pages together, he paused and corrected it. He continued his open-flip rhythm through to the end without losing himself to any one task or phone call or person.  He attended to all of it with a quiet confidence. What is yoga if not this? 

An ordinary day turned extraordinary for me, gave me a demonstration of Attention that I will carry with me for a long time to come, if not always. And transformed me in some inexplicable way. 

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* Our conversation happened in Tamil 

** Vinyasa krama in asana-pranayama practice is an intelligent, step by step progression / sequence, with synchronising breath and movement, towards a particular goal

^ What is moderately-big though? Beats me.