How Patience Works: The Quiet Mind To Benefit Others

by Janet Ettele

In How Patience Works, Troy continues his journey in the fable that began with How Generosity Works and How the Root of Kindness Works. The teachings of Master Shantideva's Perfection of Patience provide the guiding wisdom that leads Troy as he struggles to conquer the internal tyrant of his own anger. Building on the lessons learned from Grace in How Generosity Works, and Abe in How the Root of Kindness Works, Troy and his girlfriend Maggie encounter another sage. Mrs. Sternau is an elderly widow who is a regular customer a the diner where they work. The mysterious way she shares her wisdom that crosses between dimensions of time unfolds into teaching Troy the next lesson he needs to Patience.

Verses from Master Shantideva's chapter on Patience provide the backbone of wisdom to the message Mrs. Sternau delivers to Troy.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2012

About the author

A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Janet Kathleen Ettele studied music composition. Ettele feels that playing music is like painting pictures with sound, and that the same is true about writing, only with words. She has found that many elements of music composition – theme, phrasing, rhythm, and dynamics – are common elements in writing, and this awareness helps guide her written work. Ettele worked in the entertainment industry until becoming a mother. She lives in Connecticut, where she has raised two sons. She has recorded two CDs, Piano Mandalas and Piano Mandalas—Compassion, which are collections of her meditatively improvised music. How the Root of Kindness Works and How Generosity Works are her first two works of fiction in the How Life Works series, which are books based on The Six Perfections taught in Buddhism. She is now writing the fourth book in the series, which will be published in 2015. You can learn more about Janet at: www.janetettele.com.

Reviews

[Jennifer Campaniolo]

Fables are a popular vehicle for teaching because of their simplicity. Like song lyrics, you can superimpose yourself into the story without much effort. I put fables in a different category than other types of writing where I expect lots of character development and detail. Fables are simply not built to support that level of embellishment. What matters when you read a fable is if you were A. moved by it on a very basic level and B. if you learned something essential about the human experience.

How Patience Works: The Quiet Mind to Benefit Others by Janet Kathleen Ettele (Karuna Publications, May 2014) is one such successful fable. The third in a series of tales following a young man named Troy and his girlfriend Maggie that started with How Generosity Works and How the Root of Kindness Works, How Patience Works illustrates the teachings of Master Shantideva's Perfection of Patience. According to Wikipedia, Shantideva was an 8th-century Indian Buddhist whose master work--translated as A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way Of Life--is a timeless piece of wisdom, a long poem describing the process of enlightenment from the first thought to full buddhahood which is still studied by Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhists today.

I highlighted some lines in How Patience Works that gave me pause. Here is one:

Anger is like a bad vapor that permeates space, and the space it permeates is that of the mind. Imagine yourself captive in a room filled with a putrid stench. Then imagine that while in this room you are presented with delicious food. You would not be able to enjoy any pleasant taste because you would be overwhelmed by the awful smell. When anger permeates the mind, its negative aspects become dominant, blocking us from experiencing the sweet things in life.

This passage is spoken by Mrs. Sternau, an elderly widow who every Thursday comes into the diner where Troy and Maggie work (she often flubs their names, calling them "Trevor" and "Molly.") Mrs. Sternau likes to write notes to her husband on the paper place mat at her seat, and then leave them behind like offerings to the universe. Troy secretly pockets and collects them. At first he claims it's out of respect, but then admits it's because he thinks the messages are wise and inspirational--the first indication that Mrs. Sternau will be the teacher in this fable, just as a music teacher named Grace and a Vietnam veteran named Abe were teachers in the first two fables.

The problems facing Troy and Maggie are common enough--Troy is struggling to keep his cool around his shrewish stepmother, Maureen, and Maggie would like to have more control over her emotions, especially when she's confronted by rude customers in the diner. They are befriended by Mrs. Sternau, who at 80-something has successfully mastered her own emotions and is eager to share what she knows with her two young protégés. Over tea and crumpets Mrs. Sternau tells the kids about an incident that happened early in her marriage that tested the couple--and how the teachings helped them to transcend the feelings of helplessness, anger and frustration that threatened to hijack their happiness.

How Patience Works is a very sweet and gentle story that beautifully illustrates the teachings of Shantideva. It's a perfect little book for bedtime, when you're trying to loosen the hold of the day's problems from your mind to find a place of peace.

[Judy Graham]

Also loved this one. Lot of lessons to be learned.

[Amberle Husbands]

I received a free copy of How Patience Works as the result of a Goodreads giveaway. I liked this book less for the narrative than for the teachings within it. I though the characterization was a little bit heavy-handed and the situations that those characters found themselves in seemed a little overly-simplified. Very often while reading I found myself repeating “Show-don’t-tell”, like a mantra. Now, that being said, I have not read the other books in this series, so maybe that was just my impression after jumping into a story mid-way through.
And, the teachings and lessons that the author inserted into her story made the reading well worth it. While I wouldn’t recommend someone sit down and try to read this as engaging fiction, I would certainly recommend it to a friend interested in learning to better manage their own responses to the situations life puts before them.

[Angie Reisetter]

This book doesn't really deserve 4 stars as a work of literature. But that's not really what it is. There's a story line, and a few characters introduced, but they mainly set up the role of student and teacher and a couple real-life examples of the practice of patience. It's really a teaching piece about overcoming anger, and in that category, it's a 4-star. It thoroughly explains compassion, which leads to patience, and the danger of categorizing others into friend and enemy.

An enjoyable read, and a good teacher.

I got this from the firstreads program.

[Jenna]

I won this book via Goodreads first reads giveaway. It was very enlightening. I have always known karma is cause and effect, but Alberta epiphany made me look at it in a different light. Judging a bee by its capacity to sting without understanding their benefits. isn't practical. By doing so, anger isn't possible.