Every morning, as part of my meditation, I think about some of the things I plan to practice in the course of the day. Radical acceptance, which is part of mindfulness, is one of them.
The quick and dirty on mindfulness: it's being aware at each moment, of each moment. For example, mindfulness is when washing dishes, to be aware of washing dishes, thinking about the dish washing, rather than thinking about what you did before washing the dishes, what you're going to do after washing the dishes, or that dream trip to Bhutan you wish to take (or I wish to take). The point of mindfulness is that we really only ever have the present moment, so if you don't live in the here and now, you're missing your life. I'm beginning to understand that anything that isn't mindfulness is fantasy.
Radical acceptance takes this practice one step further. Not only do you stay present in your thoughts, but you accept the moment as it is. You ditch the, "I wish I weren't doing this" and the "I wish this wasn't happening" way of thinking. Why? Because this is what you're doing and this is happening. Like it or not, it's real. And it is all there is. So it's a kind of, "if you can't get out of it, get into it" kind of practice. Maybe I don't like washing dishes. Still, I wash them. How does wishing it were otherwise change the fact? It doesn't.
The natural response to this is to think that by accepting what is you're being passive and not looking for a way to change what needs changing. Not so. By focusing you're attention on the here and now and recognizing and accepting it for what it really is, you're actually more likely to be able to see and affect change when necessary. To stay with the dishwashing scenario: don't be present and accepting and you may do a poor job of it, take more time than necessary to get the job done. And here's the part I most love: you'll also miss the beautiful little soap bubbles that may randomly pop up off the sponge and float above the sink catching the light just so so they have miniature rainbows in their arcs, or the smell of the soap, the feel of the dishes. Really, there's wondrous stuff even in the most repetitive and seemingly mundane moments.
So, radically accepting washing dishes is easy. How about something harder? A sick family member perhaps? Really sick. Remembering when this person was healthy won't make them healthy again, won't ease their suffering or your own. Hoping they're better in the future won't do it either. But really being with them in the moment, will give them comfort when you're listening and responding to their needs. Really listening to the doctor will allow you to have all the information you need to figure out a course of action, should there be one. The sooner you can accept your lot in this, the sooner you can act and although this moment, right now, is what it is, that action that's borne from an acceptance of whatever the situation is can affect change.
One of my favorite Buddhist stories goes like this: a young woman was distraught: her baby son had died. She could not bear to be separated from his lifeless body. She carried it everywhere and was therefore unable to live her life. Finally, she went to the Buddha for help. She wanted her son back, alive. The Buddha promised to help, but only after she brings him a mustard seed from a family which has not suffered a loss. The woman went from door to door in her village. Of course, she could not find a family who had not suffered and eventually she gave up the search and accepted her son's death. The woman accepted her "now". In burying her son, she accepted that his life was in the past. Carrying his body around was carrying the past, hoping for a future that could not possibly be. All that ultimately made sense was to bury the boy's body and accept the truth of the present. This is human life. There's loss. There's bad stuff. That's the same for all of us.
So, that's acceptance. And now for the "radical" part of "radical acceptance". I think of this as the "no one ever said it was going to be easy" part of acceptance. I can easily accept when things go well. I can easily accept good times, happy moods, sunny days. Radical acceptance though is practicing accepting it all. Bad times, bad moods, storms. Even accepting when I can't accept and living with those moments, trying to be mindful through them, because really, this moment is all we have. All we have is what life gives us. It gives us good. It gives us bad. I even gives us great and horrible. But it all is all we got. So, each day, I try my best to radically accept it all.
BTW, I first heard of Radical Acceptance on a podcast given by Tara Brach, a clinical psychologist and Buddhist teacher. Her podcasts can be downloaded on iTunes. She also has a book titled, (yup, you guessed it!), "Radical Acceptance". And although I do radically accept that I've yet to figure out how to underline when using blogspot, if anyone out there knows how, kindly, pass on your wisdom, so I may mindfully change my future. Thanks.
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