The Trick to Endurance

When you focus on the breath, try to make it as comfortable as you can. You can try experimenting with how long or short it is; deep, shallow; heavy, light. You can also experiment with different perceptions about where the breath starts, where it comes in, where it goes out—how it spreads through the body. See what perceptions make the breath light, easy, suffused throughout the body, so that you have a good place to stay.

We live in the world where there’s a lot that we have to endure. So it makes sense that if you have something under your control that you can make comfortable, you can make that your strength. After all, endurance isn’t simply a matter of gritting your teeth. You have to realize you have some strengths that you can rely on, that you can call on. You stay with your strengths, and then the things that are difficult—things like physical pain, things like harsh, unfriendly words from other people—are a lot easier to take. That’s because, one, you’ve got something good inside. And, two, you start thinking, “I can focus on those things and turn them into huge issues inside and weigh myself down, or I can let them go.”

This is easiest with the words. You would think it would be the easiest with the words because the words come and then they’re ended, whereas pains last for a long time. But with the words, we pull them in, and we can make them last for a very long time, too, if we’re not skillful.

So if you’re going to be feeding off something, don’t feed off somebody’s nasty words. Feed off the sense of well-being you can create inside. That way, the things that are hard to bear become a lot easier to bear because you’re not focused on the hardships. You’re focused more on what you have here that still is good.

This is the trick to enduring anything. When I came back from Thailand, people would ask me, “What was the hardest thing to endure in Thailand?” I thought about it, and I realized I hadn’t focused on what was hard to endure, so I couldn’t come up with a quick answer. But it also meant that while I was there, that’s not where I was focused. There were difficulties. There were plenty of difficulties. But I was always focused on the fact that I was learning a new skill and there was always something new to learn. That sense of joy, that sense of purpose, helped make the difficult things a lot easier to take.

The same principle applies across the board. If you can look at things in a positive way and create a sense of positive well-being inside, then difficult things become easier, easy things hardly weigh on you at all, because you’re focused not on the difficulties but on your strengths.