Shundo David Haye

‘I wish you could write all this down, take it home and do it, and then you’d say, “What do you know? I am no longer troubled by powerful emotions. This is great! ” Unfortunately, that will not be the case. You can listen to all this and try to put it in practice and you will still suffer from being overcome by powerful emotions for quite a long time, so then you have to have the practice of patience and forbearance. Train yourself just to be able to be there. And recognize that there are all these stories of spiritual transformation, blah, blah, blah, and this is great, I believe in it, but when it really comes down to it, there are no quick fixes, and when the conditions are ripe for anger and fear, anger and fear will be there. I don’t care how many brilliant, enlightenment experiences you had, if strong enough conditions are there, you will feel them. So we all need a way of coping with that, and forbear with them. In fact, our brilliant spiritual practice can itself can be an excuse for a failure to really skillfully deal with these emotions and to forbear with them.’ (from the Everyday Zen website)