The Acceptance That Is Already Here
La Aceptación Que Ya Está Aquí
A student reflects on the pattern of resisting and embracing at the same time, and the teacher points to a deeper acceptance that is not something you do but something you already are.
The Acceptance That Is Already Here
A student reflects on the pattern of resisting and embracing at the same time, and the teacher points to a deeper acceptance that is not something you do but something you already are.
I liked when you talked about being in touch with the system, with giving welcome to all the parts that I try all the time to put into a space in my brain labeled "this is bad." I tell those parts to stay there and pay attention to what I need them to change. I place that demand, and at the same time I resist that resistance. I never had this point of view before, and it struck me as very interesting. Most of the time I am rejecting more than embracing. Sometimes I don't even know that I'm embracing something, and then I reject it, and then I fight. That is what I discovered in your meditation. It was something very new. Thank you. I offer this because I have never been so open to that.
Even the pattern you're describing, where you push something away, label it as bad, and simultaneously try to embrace it, creates a push and a pull. But even that push and pull deserves attention, because the attempt to embrace something is also a mental structure.
For example, if you pay attention to your breath right now: when you're aware of your breath, do you need to embrace it?
No.
If you're aware of breath, it is already fully accepted, fully embraced. When you're not aware of your breath, it's in the background. So if you're experiencing a resistance, the experience of that resistance is fully accepted. The experience of the push and the pull is a mental structure which, as you recognize it, as you have awareness of it, is already fully accepted.
Awareness as acceptance
This is what I said in the meditation: this is not something for you to do. It's not something you can do, because it is already being accepted. The fact that you are aware of it is the acceptance of it.
I'm pointing to a subtle shift in perspective. Usually we identify with the struggle. The mental structure that is struggling becomes "I." And actually, that is the nature of this "I." It needs to find an infinite struggle, a push and a pull that has no resolution. It's a very clever mechanism: find something that has no answer, no resolution, and create the struggle to resolve it. That creates a constant agitation, a push-pull, and then we identify with that. It becomes the center of what I am.
Seeing it is already accepting it
What I'm pointing to is this: the more you see this, by seeing it, it is already accepted. And I'm using the word "acceptance" not as a thing you do, because then it again becomes absorbed by the mechanism of "I'm going to do something to get somewhere." It becomes the honorable objective of a spiritual quest to once and for all accept this. But what I am trying to accept is a struggle that's self-created.
There's an invitation of trust here. You can try the process you've been engaging with, or you can notice it, see it a little differently. It might take time for that exploration to have an effect, for it to become clear that something will be freed. You can consider it a leap of faith, or an exploration in trust, or just an experiment: what if you try something different?
All of this is paradoxical, because now I'm proposing a process. But it's about noticing that what you are aware of is one hundred percent accepted by something in you that is deeper.
You cannot do acceptance
You, in a sense, have no ability to accept. You can only recognize that acceptance is already part of your nature. It's not something you can do or not do. If you experience resistance now, if you experience pain, if you experience struggle, something is fully embracing it. I could describe it more directly by saying: beingness, awareness, consciousness. It is fully aware, fully conscious of all of that.
What I'm saying is really simple. But there is something in us that really doesn't want to see it, really doesn't want to recognize it, because it is very simple and it will undermine that whole process of the push-pull that we, in a sense, want, and like, and are addicted to.
Between the old and the new
What happens is that when we start seeing this, we're stuck in between two perspectives: the old one and something new, something that has tasted this freedom. And it's just the same thing that gets deeper and deeper. When we first realize, "Oh, this is just a thought," something happens where we disidentify and taste a kind of freedom. That process can go deeper and deeper, all the way to the resistance itself, the struggle itself.
I hope that's helpful.
Yes, of course. Thank you.
You can ask yourself at any moment. Right now, for example: is there anything you're not fully accepting? That question will force you to take a position. If you say yes, you're identifying with a position. You will have to say, "This is not okay, and so I can't accept it." But that's a choice.
Now, all of that (the taking of a position, the identifying, the rejecting) is being fully accepted by what you are. You are aware of all of it, and what is aware of it is not rejecting it.
Can I just say something? While you were saying that, I was looking out the window. Our place looks onto an alley, and there was this feather, and it was floating upward a long, long way, straight up. The universe is so miraculous. When you think you know the laws, or what's going to happen, something like that appears. I just thought that was relevant to what you were saying.
The beauty in what is
Yes, very much so. I often wish I were more of a poet, to be able to communicate what arises when a question like this comes up. That is the realm of poetry, and that is what it points to.
I understand the struggle with the sense that to see beauty in destruction puts us in a position where there's a fear that we are, in a sense, accepting or condoning something. But that's not the case. You can fully see the beauty I'm talking about and still say no to unethical behavior. In fact, it frees you to be more able to risk your life in service to that.
Starting with the small things
One more thing that might be helpful. In practice, it can be good to start with the smaller things we don't like. I'm not talking about something trivial like disliking a certain meal. I'm talking about noticing certain patterns where there is an almost irrational "no" to something, a sense that you cannot see any beauty in it. It will seem irrational, and that is a good place to begin.