The Wisdom of Acceptance
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I will meet you there.
– Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Ah, Esalen! For many years now I have had the good fortune to come here to this wondrous retreat center on the Big Sur coast to relax, refresh and deepen my spiritual practice. As I find myself more consumed with the affairs of everyday life, finding a quiet still place close to nature seems ever more important to gain perspective, balance and tap into the inner knowledge that we all carry.
One of the challenges that I have been confronting lately is how, as a climate and social justice researcher, to keep a balanced perspective on the state of the world and my own state of mind. With the plethora of disturbing news coming from all sectors of society, science and the natural world things are not looking too good for future generations, let alone our own very near future. But, my biggest concern is my own growing anger and frustration watching our society continue to focus on things of little or no importance, like Kite Boy and Celebrity Party crashing. I am impatient for the necessary shift in our collective consciousness to the “Great Turning” from a consumer society to an Earth Based Community. I know my anger is counterproductive, but what can I do to transform that anger and become a more active part of this evolutionary transformation that is waiting to emerge in the human family?
The energy of anger can be transformed into the energy of understanding
and compassion. We don’t have to throw away anything. We only need to
learn how to transform one kind of energy into another.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Whenever I want to deal with a challenge in my life I turn to my dance practice by setting an intention to resolve the issue, letting it go and engaging in mindful movement. This gray rainy coastal morning, as the waves were crashing against the shore and storm clouds threatened from above, my anger towards ignorance, injustice and the state of the world was bubbling up. I dropped into my dance, my breath, my movement sensations and disappeared into the dance. After going deeply into my body and out of the mind, I noticed the Medicine cards on the altar. I walked over and drew the Deer card.
Deer card represents fawn, whose primary character is described as gentleness. The story goes that one day Fawn heard Great Spirit calling to her from the top of Sacred Mountain and she immediately started up the hill. But there was a horrible demon blocking the path and trying to keep all the beings of creation from connecting with Great Spirit. He wanted everyone to fear him so he could feel powerful and in control.
But fawn was not frightened when she came upon the demon, who was the archetype of all ugly monsters and breathed fire and smoke and made loud sounds to scare fawn. Any other creature would have died of fright but fawn just gently and innocently said, “please let me pass, I’m on my way to see Great Spirit.” Fawn’s eyes were filled with such love and compassion for this oversized bully that her love and gentleness penetrated his hardened, ugly heart and he melted into the earth. The message was obvious. Like fawn I need to learn to use gentleness to touch the hearts and minds of wounded beings who are trying to keep us from the Sacred Mountain. A voice rang in my head, “stop pushing so hard to get others to change and love them as they are. Use gentleness and acceptance to solve the dilemmas you are facing.” I want to transform my anger, fear and frustration into love and compassion. But, how do I do that?
Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves.
– Pema Chodron
I don’t know about you, but there is no one that is harder on me, than me! The tape goes; “You need to work harder, You’re such a jerk, How could you be so stupid, You’re just not enough, You’re father was right, you’re just lazy”… a constant chatter of self abuse and condemnation running in my head. It seems coming to love and accepting my own humanness, makes me more able to understand and accept others. Can I make friends with what I have been rejecting or labeling as “bad” in others and myself? But if I just accept things as they are won’t I get lazy? Nothing will get done … things won’t change…”
Some people confuse acceptance with apathy, but there’s all the difference in the world. Apathy fails to distinguish between what can and what cannot be helped: Acceptance makes that distinction. Apathy paralyzes the will-to-action; acceptance frees it by relieving it of impossible burdens.
– Arthur Gordon
The challenges that humanity is facing right now seem so urgent and overwhelming to me. I want to run down the street yelling, “Wake up! Wake up! Hmm, sounds like Chicken Little yelling “the sky is falling!” But, the more I confront people with the science and facts about issues like climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, social inequality, and the myriad of concerns we talk about on Conversations it’s easy for me to fall into anger and frustration which leads me to push even more. As they say in the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
When I sit here by the river, watching it flow into the Pacific, I feel nature talking to me again. Trust the flow, surrender, you are a part of everything and everything is a part of you. In short, lighten up! I apologize to any of you that I have repelled with my over exuberance and passion. Sometimes my head gets separated from my heart and body and I run over people with my intensity. When I do that I miss the miracle that you and all life is in every moment. How delicious to be in this human evolutionary stream. Just thinking of all of you who might be reading this makes me want to slow down, stop pushing the river and celebrate our interconnectedness with all life. Perhaps that is the best path to the Great Turning that is waiting to emerge. How would it be if we just loved the world awake?
With Love and Blessings,
michael
How could drops of water know themselves to be a river?
Yet the river flows on.
– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
