Patience and tolerance don’t mean people hit you and you try to endure it, and you call that patience and tolerance. No, no. Real tolerance is when you don’t have to tolerate anymore. What does that mean? For example, people hit you, condemn you, but you don’t feel anything important about it. That’s what we call real patience and tolerance.
This kind of patience and tolerance comes from spiritual practice. After spiritual practice we have wisdom, then our compassion will also develop. That’s why in the Bible it states, “Seek you first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto you.” You must find the Kingdom of God inside, first, and then all the virtues, and other things will be added.
Now why don’t we have patience and tolerance? Because we don’t have the real love, the absolute love of God and Buddha. For example, Jesus Christ was crucified, but even at the last minute, He still prayed to God to forgive those people who tormented Him. Who was He? Someone like that must be the manifestation of Bodhisattva, having such boundless compassion. We ordinary people wouldn’t be able to forgive like that. They’re already lucky if we don’t reproach them, not to talk about praying God to forgive them. There is no such thing. If Shakyamuni Buddha saw Christ did that, He would also praise Him. Seeing that Jesus Christ only taught people to do good, and was put to death because of it due to misunderstanding, yet He still prayed for His enemies, all Bodhisattvas from the ten directions would take Christ up right away to befriend Him.
The Western Pure Land needs such people. There are many houses and mansions that are empty, unoccupied.
Now if you want to attain a real loving heart like Christ, then you have to realize that “I” am that Love. That’s why people say that “God is Love,” “God is compassion” That’s why we praise that “Buddha is the most Compassionate One, Christ is the Most Loving One, God is the immense Love.”
If we don’t have that immense love, then we know we’re still very far from God, very far. If we don’t have that true boundless compassion, then we know we’re very far from Buddha, very far, and don’t mention that we’re children of Buddha or we’re Christian.
When we practice spiritually, we have to know how much merit we have, what level we are at. Don’t just close our eyes, and if you see any one famous or do something good or has a lot of followers, then we write or speak nonsense because of jealousy.
We don’t check ourselves to see where we are on the spiritual path. Have we done anything beneficial for anyone or for ourselves? All our greed, anger, and ignorance, all our selfishness, our pettiness, our unjust jealousy, are we able to control them yet? If we just sit there and judge others, it’s so easy. And we don’t look back at ourselves, then it’s a waste for our life.
That He could forgive His enemies while He suffered utmost pain, while people were slandering Him, and piercing Him on the side. And they wrapped His head with thorns, then crucified Him. If you were being crucified, could you bear it? If a nail accidentally pierces into your hand, it’s already unbearable, not to talk about being spiked all day, all night, and He just stood there enduring that with arms extended. Yet He still prayed God to forgive them. Then you must know that person was a living Buddha.
So you have to know He is very selfless, He had no ego, He only loved others so much that He forgot about Himself, forgot that He was in pain and suffered on the cross; and still worried and prayed for others. Ordinary people would pray for themselves, right? Praying for themselves first. But Christ forgot His own bodily suffering; He just worried and prayed for those ignorant people who were about to regress, about to commit great sin and would be judged. Then you must know He was a living Buddha; you don’t have to know what He taught. A person who attained that level of boundless compassion had to be a Buddha, very high-level. Now, do you see the similarity between Buddha and Christ? Do you see it or not?
