Tara Brach - Genuine Acceptance

Episode Date: November 30, 2011

2009-08-26 - Our capacity to accept this life is key to our freedom, yet there are many misconceptions about acceptance: People wonder, if acceptance makes us a doormat in relationships? Isn't acceptance akin to resignation? Doesn't it make us passive when what is needed is action? This talk explores some of the misunderstandings about acceptance and offers teachings on the nature of genuine and liberating acceptance. Please support this podcast by donating at www.tarabrach.com or www.imcw.org. Your donation makes a difference! Thank you!

As many of you know, these Wednesday nights are podcasted now, so we are joined internationally by people around the globe listening, which is really a nice feeling. And I get interesting correspondence. And one of the notes I got from one person who listens every week, I didn't write it down exactly what he said. He said, acceptance as it relates to not being a doormat. He said, I think it would make a very interesting talk. At times I struggle with how to react to difficult situations with acceptance but not being a doormat. Thank you. This is one of a number of emails I've gotten over the years with different questions and

confusion about what does it really mean to accept. I remember when I was touring, a book tour for radical acceptance, we were on the brink of of invading Iraq and people are saying radical acceptance, does that mean we just sit back and let it happen? You know, radical acceptance, does that mean we don't do what we can to protect our environment? So what I'd like to do is explore tonight what genuine acceptance means.

You know, what is, there's misunderstandings. And then what's a liberating quality of acceptance? The kind of acceptance that really frees our hearts. So that'll be the, the exploration tonight. And I'll begin right out front with a bit of a definition, which is that acceptance is really recognizing the truth of this moment, what's happening right in this moment,

without resistance, with openness. So acceptance doesn't have to do with other moments, with something out there. It has to do, and this is why it's radical, with a very immediate openness to the life that's right here. Okay? And it's got a courageous quality.

Courage has got to do with the greatness of heart because it's a willingness of our heart to be with, without pulling away, to be with the life that's here. So it's engaged. Acceptance isn't passive. It's an engaged willingness to be here. And I think of it a lot as our relationship with reality.

Okay? That reality is what's happening. For instance, if it's raining out and you're caught in the rain, and eventually you'll get inside and be dry, but right now you're in the rain and you're wet and you don't have an umbrella. The question is the mind either accepts, okay, it's raining and I'm wet, are what's the alternative? You can get down on yourself for forgetting the umbrella.

you can hate the feeling of the wetness. You can say this is a bad thing. You can be opposed to it. But what is the alternative? Here's Oscar Wilde. This is a story about him. On his deathbed, he was drifting in and out of consciousness. And once when he opened his eyes, he was heard to murmur,

this wallpaper is killing me. One of us has to go. Anyway, so acceptance. is a state of heart mind it's a state of heart state of mind and it has nothing to do with your behavior okay you can accept something and draw all sorts of boundaries acceptance is in this moment how you're relating to the reality that's right here acceptance is an evaluation you can accept something but it's not evaluating it as good or worthwhile or bad it's just saying it's as it is and the body mind is not tensing against it or rejecting it so another example let's say someone

has betrayed your trust this is a this is a one that happens to many of us at certain times let's say you confided in someone and they and asked them not to say anything and they did so what is acceptance then it's not saying oh you did an okay thing or you did it a good thing or I'm going to be a doormat and let you do it again. Acceptance is opening to the actual feelings you have about that, the hurt or the anger, and being willing, this is the courage, to just feel that. And it's out of that that you then can respond. It's out of that presence. Now the basic teaching in the spiritual traditions about behavior is that why,

wise behavior arises out of an accepting presence. The behavior that most can draw wise boundaries, compassionate boundaries, effective boundaries, the speaking that is going to most serve you comes out of that quality of non-resisting presence. But we'll get back to that. I want to talk about the challenges to acceptance,

because the challenges come in three very arctippal modes. These are the basic challenges we encounter. And one is the programming that most of us knows very well that when something that we don't like happens, there's the fighting it. We go into opposition. And this is the program that has shoulds to it and lashes out and judges.

blames. That's the reflex. So that's one of the three reflexes. Something's not working out. Somebody doesn't cooperate. The reflex blame. It's to push it away to get rid of. That's before the moment of presence. It's push away. I saw great personals. It's entitled free to a good home. And on one side you see a picture of a little kitten. Beautiful six-month-old male kitten. Orange and Carmel Tabby. Playful, friendly, very affectionate. Ideal for family with kids are the other side you see a young man handsome 32 year old husband personable funny good job but doesn't like cats as he goes or the cat goes call jennifer decide which one you want okay so push away that's the way we draw our boundaries the other mode that's very familiar

when something is unpleasant or difficult and we don't like it is flight so we've got the fight mode then there's the flight mode, which means that, and I think pain is a really good example when something's painful. Instead of being with it, to flight is, it's kind of a tent,

we tense against, we try to ignore, we try to deny, we try to distract our attention, we try to go somewhere else. So that's your classic flight mode. Example is Rita Rudner, She says, I love to shop after a bad relationship.

I don't know. I buy a new outfit and it makes me feel better. It just does. Sometimes if I see a really great outfit, I'll break up with someone on purpose. Okay, so we've got fight and flight mode. Freeze mode is in a way, and this is where we get our dormant in guise of acceptance.

Freeze mode is when something's going on and we pretend acceptance, but somewhere inside us, we've pushed it under, okay? We've shoved it under. We've stuffed it under. It's actually really common. There's a fear of confronting.

There's a fear of dealing with it. We don't know how to get away. So shove it under. And then one of the classic now going around the circuits' descriptions is guy confessing to his friend that he really blew it at work. And he was talking to a secretary and kind of attracted. and he asked how the weather was and he asked her, she asked him

and he said, oh, it's kind of nippley out and he went, oh no, oh my God, you know, he freaked out. It's really, really embarrassing. And his friend, he was telling it to, he said, you know, it's not your fault. That's a Freudian slip, okay? And he described it. He said, Freudian slips happen.

They happen all the time. Why, just the other morning, I was having breakfast with my wife and I meant to ask her to please pass the sugar and instead I said, you damn bitch you're ruining my life you know so first of all forgive my examples but but if you don't go lightly with this acceptance stuff you're in trouble so but we you know it's it's a it's a weird story but you get the idea that when we push it under it always comes out sideways in other

words authentic acceptance you know really accepting how another person is there's nothing pushed under that then comes out in some way, you know, just unexpectedly because there's really space for who another person is. So we've got these three ways that we, instead of acceptance, sometimes they can look like acceptance, but three ways that we in some way are controlling our experience, not being with it. The opposite of acceptance is any moment that we're trying to manipulate our inner experience. So the Buddha's basic inquiry was how to counter this conditioning. Every one of us, when there's unpleasantness, rather than saying let me pause, let me open to what's here, immediately has a reflex to go into one of those three modes. And typically we have

our favorites and we flip back and forth between them. So the Buddha's inquiry and this was his whole life's journey and teachings was when the life arises the stuff happens how do we find our way to a liberating quality of presence that we can then respond not react okay and his dedication was to freedom and there was this inquiry of the Buddhas of how instead of reacting we can respond came from an understanding of cause and effect of karma and this is karma is not just a phrase that has to do with exotic eastern philosophy karma is a basic understanding of the law of cause and effect that if you behave in a certain way if you think in a certain way it's going to affect what

else happens in your life the good news and the teaching of karma and this is really what brings us to meditation practice, is that you can't change the past, but by coming into a very, very full presence right here, totally influences the unfolding of what happens after that. This moment is where our future is created. And I mean this moment. It's not an idea that we're here listening to a talk,

but it's down the road, because our habit is to keep thinking that we're preparing for, something in the future. We're trying to get through the day or get past such and such. But the radical teaching is it's right this moment. And if we're in the habit of postponing, our life will continue to play out the same patterns that have been in some way where we've been caught in the past. The only place to change, the only place for freedom is to be begin to get the knack of pausing and arriving in this courageous way right here. So the Buddha

in understanding karma and understanding the power of presence really taught ways of training our attention so we can be here. And that's what we're doing when we come together on these Wednesday nights is training our attention so that rather than playing out the patterns in our life that have kept us from maybe really feeling close with other people, are kept us from really feeling that we could open our hearts to our own being, feeling at home with ourselves, that have maybe kept us caught in certain addictive behavior, that we actually have a practice that can open the gateway to having peace right here. So I will give you an example of where one man started learning about the power of this courageous presence

because his story touched me. This was a man who had a he and his wife were parents of a 16-year-old who, as some are, was not too communicative, kind of did the monosom. Slavic grunt kind of thing. But I also had an entitlement thing going, and this was especially upsetting to his mother. He just seemed to have forgotten common courtesy, at least for that year or year and a half, you know, saying thank you, bringing his plate to the sink and that kind of thing. People would call them, and he wouldn't write down a message.

It was at that level. And so the parents had the swing that they were doing, where they'd go from feeling very angry and critical, of their son, which of course had him get defensive and created more distance to being what they considered to be a dormant. They'd kind of give up, let him have his way, be kind of indulgent, not say anything, and felt like their son was walking all over them.

So this was their swing, okay, from being fight, you know, the more aggressive, to this kind of withdrawn, shut down place. Somewhere late in his 16th year, this young man was beginning to drive, and for the first time his father loaned a family car. And the agreement was, and it was a very clear agreement, 12 o'clock, you're back in the house with the car.

So, of course, it was 1205. He wasn't back. The father tried calling him on the cell phone. There was no response. Try it again and again. And he found himself getting into a rage. And that's when the question, okay so what does it mean right now to accept what am i accepting am i accepting it's okay that he's doing this

no you know am i accepting that i should be doing nothing about it no not necessarily so this is where how do you find your way when you're that upset into what i've described as kind of this courageous willingness to be with what is so his inquiry was what's going on inside me right now. And that's an important inquiry. It's a very clear way to begin to arrive again. What is going on inside me? And if it's conceptual, it doesn't work.

You know, oh, I'm upset that he did this because he always used to do this and he's still doing it and it makes my wife. If it's a story, it doesn't work. What's going on inside me? Throat, my chest, my belly, fear, anger. What is it? And for him, it was the full-blown anger of, you know, heat and pressure and like about to explode kind of anger.

So he named that. He felt that. This is beginning to accept what is here, what is here. And then as he opened to it, as he made room for the anger. And by the way, making room for the anger means not believing this storyline, but opening to how you feel it in your body. as he did that he got in touch with the fear under it and of course the fear as you can imagine

is what every parent would fear is that he's going to get a call any moment from a police department and hear what could be the horror of his life so he opened to the fear and he opened and he felt it and he breathed with it and as he did that and this happens when we really open

deeply to what's there under that he felt how much He cared. It was just caring. I care about this being. Caring, caring. So for the next, I think it was half hour, he was just moving back and forth between feeling surges of anger, staying with that, feeling the fear, feeling the love. He was just swinging around. But he was present. He was present. And he was in that space that's aware of being in the moment. Half an hour later, he hears the car drive up and his son barges into the living room. and launches into his defense, which is lost track of time, cell phone lost juice, you know, what kind of thing it would be. But rather than he didn't react, the dad didn't react, he just content, just the way he had been listening and feeling inside the fear and the caring and the, he listened to his son. He just listened, which could be a little off-putting when you're coming out and you're

expecting to be, have something come back at you. So then he listened for a bit And then with his eyes glistening, he told us, son, this was one of the worst hours of my life. I love you and I was frightened beyond anything I can describe. Please, next time, let's have this be different. The boy's armor instantly dissolved

and he just kind of collapsed into the couch and they talked. It was a huge, huge learning for this man. and what he learned was that if by grace, rather than reacting, he could pause enough to pay attention to what was going on inside him. This is radical acceptance. This is not dormant. This is just being with what's there. He could respond in a way that was a lot more intelligent, a lot more effective than if he had been possessed by his feelings, planning his strategy,

you know, caught in his reactivity and then laid into his son right away. There's such a misunderstanding that acceptance is passive. There's such a misunderstanding. You know, I've worked with women who have been in marriages where they've been being repeatedly abused. And I'm thinking of one in particular right now. Repeatedly abused and kept on staying and kept on staying. No, was that acceptance?

No. Actually, this is what was so eye-opening, was that when she began to do some real work and really began to accept what was going on, except this is abuse, this is how it feels, ouch, this is hurting my body and this is hurting my life. When she fully accepted the reality of that, that's when she could choose to leave. Does that make sense?

acceptance allows us to respond wisely now I've seen it the other way I've worked with people who have gone from one relationship to another to another to another and that wasn't empowerment that wasn't taking care of themselves acceptance was when they could learn

to stay with the uncomfortableness that came with every single relationship and stay long enough to befriend that and go through a kind of inner transformation and let them realize it's not that person. It was when they were able to accept on that level, they could actually stay and make something work. Acceptance does not necessarily have to do with any particular behavior. It's a

quality of presence that lets us absolutely live our life out of wisdom, out of compassion. Now, here's the other thing I wanted to communicate. When we think we're accepting another, what we're really doing is accepting what's coming up in us. It has nothing to do with the other person. Acceptance, our capacity for acceptance is our capacity to experience and be with whatever comes up within us in relationship to that person. That's the training. And I've talked a lot about accepting another person. Our biggest domain is accepting what comes up in us about ourselves. That's the hardest, as many people know, the most challenging domain

that if we're caught in an addiction or anger or insecurity or jealousy or whatever it is, for us to be able to feel our own aversion to that and just stay. Just stay. Just breathe with it and feel it and not believe our thoughts.

That's when we begin to actually heal. One teacher, a yoga teacher, she said, put your right arm over your left and hug yourself. And then you said, put your left arm over your right and hug your evil twin. So we learn to really open.

Many of you have heard me talk about Carl Rogers and one of the most compelling statements he ever made, which was it wasn't. He said the great paradox was it wasn't until I accepted myself just as I was that I was free to.

change. That this courageous presence with our own experience that absolutely is not resisting how it is, is the precursor to change. It doesn't mean we're denying anything. In fact, accepting ourselves, so many people think it's like, okay, I'll just ignore it. It's not that. It's like completely engaged and connecting with how it is and allowing it. And in the moment of full allowing, there's a freeing up. So it becomes really important to investigate for ourselves the difference between authentic acceptance and anything where we think, oh, it's okay or if it's resignation or whatever. And just to take a moment and check that out for yourself, you might just close your eyes. It's just a little experiment. And you might think of a situation perhaps with somebody,

you know that where it's been in it's been over time difficult or unpleasant where in some way you've shut down like you've kind of given up or resigned so that's you're in a way you're saying well this is how the person is but it's resigned it's it's it's in some way you've just kind of shut down so it may be that there's a grudge or some in a quiet way but you're you've in a sense withdrawn. And just to get the feeling of what that's like, when you've kind of, maybe it looks like to the world,

you've kind of accepted the situation. But internally, it's actually a kind of giving up, a defeat, a resignation. Now, many of us have that. We haven't worked all the relationships through, and we've kind of let it go, but not in a liberating way, more of a kind of resignation or defeat.

So as you let yourself sense that, and sense what that's like in your body, when you have in a relationship with someone kind of resigned to how they are, and how it feels in your heart. And you might take a few full breaths. I'm going to ask you to shift your attention and sense where you've been

in a relationship with someone and you've really gotten, this is how this person is, but there's not a resignation. You actually have relaxed into letting that person be the way they are. There's space in your heart for them being just the way they are. Maybe for some, you don't have an example of that and that's fine, but if you do, if there's an example of where you've really registered, okay, this is this person, this is their personality. This is the way they behave. And your heart just has space for that. Sense the difference between that and the resigned kind of way of meeting the reality of the other person. This is the

difference between authentic acceptance and resignation, being a dormant, shutting down. When we begin to investigate, what does genuine acceptance feel like? and this is the key to pretty much everything that we're talking about tonight. Genuine acceptance in its purity is no different than love. The space that accepts is a loving space. You can even sense the possibility of the space of the heart that absolutely accepts what's arising in you in regards to another person. It's all accepted.

There's nothing. opposed, absolutely nothing resisted in regards to another person. A total allowing that somebody is the way they are. But engaged, it's not like a turning away, it's like fully present with another and absolutely allowing. That is the same as love. That openness and presence is love. If you'd like to open your eyes, you can. Okay, so here's another piece, which is we're given this guidance that acceptance is the way to go. But in reality, the self, the ego self can't accept. The ego or the self is designed to fight, flight, or freeze. The self is designed to react. What accepts is awareness. The truth of what you are is what accepts.

And the most you can do is intend to accept. Intend. It's kind of a willingness that aligns you with awareness, aligns you with what you are. Because if you think I'm going to accept this, the eye that's the self will keep running into trouble because the self can't do it. The self is designed to react. So we begin to get the wisdom of intention that we can sense where the reactivities are and just intend to meet our edge and soften.

This is the teaching of Choghyaam-Trunpa, wonderful Tibetan teacher. He says, meeting our edge and softening. That every time we meet our edge where we're resisting, because we keep on re-resisting, if you have noticed, especially if you've meditated for a while, it just keeps happening over and over again

that stuff comes up and we tense against it. It's not our fault. That's just the conditioning. That's the self-conditioning. So the self can't change that. But awareness can notice that, and there can be an intention to soften, an intention to soften.

I got a letter recently from one woman whose son in his early 20s overdosed on drugs. And it's the most horrific loss. And one thing she wrote to me was, how can I accept that he's gone? The self can't accept that. The self, all the self can do is go, no, no, no. But awareness, there can be this intention to say, soften and allow gradually. There can be this intention.

There can be an intention to come home to the awareness that has space, the awareness that doesn't oppose anything. And it's that awareness that's the source of the love that is timeless. This woman had touched it. She wrote to me that she said that when she really was present, she could sense the love that can be felt everywhere. That's the acceptance place. When we really stop resisting, we arrive at an openness that feels love everywhere. The American teacher, Gungaji writes, opening to whatever is present can be an heartbreaking business. But let the heart break, for your breaking heart only

reveals a core of love unbroken. So how do we train? How do we train to align ourselves with this awareness that really stops resisting? That's pretty much what we're doing here. And one of the guidances that you'll find is train in short bits when something's really difficult, when everything in you is in full resistance, just for a little time. You might say just for a few minutes, I'm going to have the intention to be with this, the intention to soften. And what we find is that there are levels of acceptance that go deeper and deeper. And the first level is that we're just saying, okay, I'm intending to be with this. I don't really want to be with this. I don't like this. Everything in me is tensing, but there's some willingness. There's some

intention. Okay. So we're we're a little more awake than the outright reactivity place. And then the next level is that as we intend and we begin to feel it is there's kind of a softening. Sometimes it's described as we're leaning into what's there. There's a willingness that actually becomes curious and interested and softens enough to actually feel what's there. And then gradually there's a deepening of surrendering and surrendering until there's a profound kind of what I call a surrendering presence. It's as if there's water washing away the sands and we're just kind of letting go into what it is, letting go. This is Ajan Chai. He says, if you let go a little, you'll find a little peace. If you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. If you let go

absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. So let's just take a few moments just to practice. What does it mean to intend and soften in the moment? Because one of the things that we find out, and this has to do with the cushion, which is formal meditation and being out in the streets when we're in our relationships and ready to be reactive, is that if you can sit and begin to feel the things that come up inside you that you don't want to hang out with and in some way agree to stay, agree to feel them, there's a lot more possibility that when somebody says something that trips you off, that you'll pause just a few more moments. and in that pause

arrive a little bit more in this acceptance. That in those moments you'll begin to break the karmic pattern. That's why we practice. We practice to break the pattern of reactivity and live from a more spontaneous place. Okay, so let's take a few moments together.

Find a way of sitting that lets you again feel an alertness. So you're sitting upright and then see if there's a way you can relax a bit more. Perhaps just letting the shoulders down, letting them drop. Perhaps a few full breaths and let the exhale be a real letting go, letting go, letting go. You might scan and sense, is there any way that you're resisting in your body. It's your body in some way tightening against something. So when the body's resisting,

it's a sign of really resisting presence. This is really an exercise in non-resistance in noticing what's happening right here and relaxing with it, allowing it. If right here you're sensing there's some physical discomfort? In a way that's the easiest to practice with it, so obvious, to sense where it is in

your body. And let your intention be to let it fully be there. In a sense you can soften around the area of discomfort. If there's a sense of unpleasantness in an emotional way, let's say you're anxious, upset about something, restless, tired, then feel how that lives in your body right now. And notice what happens if you just intend to offer that message of yes. Just intend to let it be there. So just like the man in the story and feeling his anger and his fear, what happens if your intention is right now? to absolutely let what's here be here just as it is.

If it's difficult, it helps to breathe with what's here. There's some people, the image and sense of a smile and smiling into the part of the body that might be distressed helps to create that space of acceptance. But what most will support your practice is a sincerity of intention, this willingness to be with what's here as well as you can. If you let go a little, you'll find a little peace.

If you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. If you let go absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. One of the ways we resist is to drift, to get distracted. So in a very simple way, if that's going on, and just invite yourself right here again and discover what happens if you say yes in a very deep way to exactly what you're experiencing right now.

In the moments of non-resistance, when you're aware of what's happening, there's space. Just rest in that space. So you can be the silence that's listening right now, the space that can feel and sense what's happening. The freedom that arises is this shift in identity from a resisting self

to this awake space that doesn't oppose anything. These last few moments just sense the possibility of not opposing anything. You continue to meditate and just sense intuitively the blessings of genuine acceptance that when there really is not, no resistance. There's a lot of energy. You know, it takes a lot of energy to resist. It's exhausting.

It pushes, pushing away life takes a lot. So when we stop pushing away life, that life just flows in. There's a spontaneous flowing of life through us. For many people, this path of acceptance and presence actually ends up meaning that their bodies start healing because there's so much more energy available. There's a lot of life when we stop resisting. That's one of the blessings. Another blessing is when we rest in this awareness that doesn't oppose anything,

we connect with this tenderness, this love. true love is this allowing presence you can bring to mind anyone that you know you care about right now and just sense resting in the space of awareness and truly allowing that person

to be as they are absolutely not opposing or resisting anything about them that openness is naturally tender and loving this is the gift of acceptance when we rest in that awareness, we reconnect with our natural wisdom.

There's a realizing of what we are that our deepest nature is this awake space, this mystery that's beyond any resisting self. It goes with a short verse called White Dove. Just take a moment from these final moments just to rest in this space of awake awareness, not resisting, not clinging, just being in the shared quiet and invitation arises like a white dove, lifting from a limb and taking flight. Come and live in truth.

Take your place in the flow of grace. Draw aside the veil you thought would always separate. your heart from love. All you ever longed for is before you in this moment if you dare draw in a breath and whisper, yes. All beings discover

the openness and love of their true nature. May all beings rest in peace. Namaste. The teaching you have received has been freely offered. If you would like to contact

the Insight Meditation Community of Washington to make a donation or to learn more about our programs, please visit our website at www.imcw.org.