When we put down ideas of what life should be like,
we are free to wholeheartedly say yes to our life as it is.
Tara Brach
What is actually happening
Tag: Acceptance
A paradox
Just sitting means just that. That ‘just’ endlessly goes against the grain of our need to fix, transform, and improve ourselves. The paradox of our practice is that the most effective way of transformation is to leave ourselves alone. The more we let everything be just what it is, the more we relax into an open, attentive awareness of one moment after another.
Barry Magid, Leave yourself alone
photo nevit dilmen
A part of life
Movement and change are interesting aspects of life to work with. On one level change is obvious – such as the rain last night in Ireland after a few days of lovely sun – and we frequently resist this, acting as if we expect things to always remain the same. On another level, we have an inner restlessness which is constantly moving us to want change, that things be different, “better”, a constant inner “becoming” that does not make contentment in the present moment easy. This quote deals with impermanence, but both aspects – impermanence and becoming – have to be worked with, if we are to become fully human.
Change of one sort or another is the essence of life, so there will always be the loneliness and insecurity that come with change. When we refuse to accept that loneliness and insecurity are part of life, when we refuse to accept that they are the price of change, we close the door on many possibilities for ourselves; our lives become lessened, we are less than fully human.
If we try to prevent, or ignore, the movement of life, we run the risk of falling into the inevitable depression that must accompany an impossible goal. Life evolves; change is constant. When we try to prevent the forward movement of life, we may succeed for a while but, inevitably there is an explosion; the groundswell of life’s constant movement, constant change, is too great to resist.
Jean Vanier, Becoming Human
photo xlibber
The two wings
The two parts of genuine acceptance — seeing clearly and holding our experience with compassion —are as interdependent as the two wings of a great bird. Together, they enable us to fly and be free.The wing of clear seeing is described …..as mindfulness. This is the quality of awareness that recognizes exactly what is happening in our moment-to-moment experience. When we are mindful of fear, for instance, we are aware that our thoughts are racing, that our body feels tight and shaky, that we feel compelled to flee — and we recognize all this without trying to manage our experience in any way, without pulling away. The second wing of Radical Acceptance, compassion, is our capacity to relate in a tender and sympathetic way to what we perceive. Instead of resisting our feelings of fear or grief, we embrace our pain with the kindness of a mother holding her child. Compassion honors our experience; it allows us to be intimate with the life of this moment as it is.
Tara Brach, Unfolding the Wings of Acceptance
photo bengt nyman
Sheltered
Wherever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, we’ll eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary or sad. We’ll discover a sense of confidence that isn’t rooted in arrogance or pride. We’ll realize that we are always sheltered, always safe and always home.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living
photo richard hoare
Work with whatever arises
As many teachers have pointed out, “the path is the goal”. That means that what we experience as “obstacles” along the way is usually just a sense of our own expectations falling apart. These same obstacles can be viewed differently, as the basis for reengaging our attention and working through whatever arises, whether it is a sense of purpose and satisfaction, or boredom and resistance, or a sense of futility. Work with whatever arises
Cyndi Lee, Yoga Body, Buddha Mind
photo prayitno
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