Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [147]
Buddhist placidity is not the same as Christian patience
Another attitude that bears an outward resemblance to true patience but is essentially distinct from it is typified by the Buddhist mood of an even-tempered endurance in regard to all that comes to pass. This, too, implies a capacity for waiting indefinitely without falling into impatience.
What we are faced with here is not the psychological device for ego protection that the Stoa commends under the label of ataraxy. it is a fundamentally different attitude to the world of real things, and hence to that eminent and constitutive aspect of natural reality, the reality of time as such. To the Buddhist, all real being is mere appearance, devoid of true substantiality. His attitude, therefore, is that of detached contemplation of reality, dispensed from all obligations of action and accomplishment.
This position of a pure spectator, unfavorable to all activity and tension—in fact involving an aversion to all endeavors at realizing a purpose—precludes the very basis on which the virtue of true patience might unfold. Certainly it also keeps out impatience in the sense, that is, of uprooting the common presupposition (the importance of reality and of tasks ordained to its shaping) for the actualization of both impatience and patience, just as a lunatic can no longer commit any sin but can no longer display any virtue either.
In other words, the Buddhist doctrine eliminates the problem of patience and impatience, and that in a much more formal sense even than does Stoicism. For, whereas the Stoic philosophy bears upon our attitude towards things merely insofar as they affect our state of mind, the Buddhist modifies our basic relation to the world of reality and calls in question our general obligation to do our part within its framework.
Patience is opposed to petulance and to inconstancy
Passing, now, to the description of true Christian patience, we must at once signalize two distinct dimensions in which it unfolds. We mean that patience is opposed to two moral defects: first, to impatience in the sense of petulancy or a quarrelsome and violent behavior; secondly, to fickleness and inconstancy: the tendency soon to desist from a purpose if its realization seems to require a long period of time.
Patience in the sense of an antithesis to this last-named defect is closely related to constancy; yet, it should be noted that constancy comprises other elements besides patience. Lack of constancy may be conditioned by the lack of patience; but it may also come from superficiality, spiritual discontinuity, mere suggestibility or lack of selflessness (such as is found in insufficient love and zeal). He who is wanting in constancy does not necessarily lack patience; but whoever possesses constancy also possesses patience in the latter sense.
Furthermore, patience may reveal varying shades according to the different classes of good to whose pursuit it refers. We must use different criteria in discussing patience according as the good we are desirous of (without being able to obtain it immediately) attracts us as something that just happens to be agreeable to us in some respect, or as something that constitutes an objective good for us, or as something valuable in itself, or again, finally, as something that actually bears upon the realization of the kingdom of God.
Impatience is a form of self-indulgence
Insofar as the good we are pursuing belongs to the category of what is agreeable or objectively beneficial to us, it will be a question of that kind of patience in which the element of constancy is less stressed. Suppose we are longing for some legitimate good for ourselves: if its acquisition is rendered difficult by certain obstacles (unforeseen ones, in particular) or