Acceptance - Balm or Catalyst?

Many of us know that acceptance heals us. It signifies letting go. There are several lovely ways of expressing acceptance, ie. embracing what has happened; meeting the hurt without denying it; being courageous to face the truth; being open to vulnerabilities; being on friendly terms with the pain, hurt or fear.

However, without in-depth understanding of how the defilement-mind works, these lovely terms are not practical and attempting to do them most likely leaves us feeling worse – either we’re really bad and unforgiving or we’re such a failure.

Let’s look at embracing what has happened. If our meanings of what has happened already caused the pain, to embrace all that – which we normally do by paying full attention – will cause the pain to be magnified. In reality, we are to realize that the way we are interpreting the happening IS what is causing the hurt. So rather than trying to embrace, questioning our meanings will be more helpful to assist us to understand the scenario and make some degree of letting go possible. If we are skillful at noticing the mind-play at work, then the non-identification to that mind-making will liberate us instantly.

In the same way, “meeting the hurt without denying it, being courageous to face the truth and being open to vulnerabilities” are invitations to relate to the realities. Meaning, we pay attention to the workings of the mind, rather than the meanings or concepts being felt. Without understanding the natures of mind-play, our attention naturally attends to our emotions and the experiencing of the meanings or concepts. Conceptually, emotions make the experiencing of pain even more intense – letting go would be impossible unless we go into denial. We use more concepts to distract ourselves so we need not deal with such pain. Usually we buy into the lovingness of the beautiful terms and feel good about being able to let go or flow along. Although this way does bring about relief, it is only temporarily because the root has not been understood. Worse, this way of diverting our attention is ignoring the real issue thus bringing us further from realizing the root cause.

When we encounter pain, the natural reaction towards it is resistance. Resistance causes us to try to fix the situation and be rid of the pain. Ironically resistance intensifies and seemingly prolongs the pain. Pain arises when there is aversion and resistance is just another face of aversion. Therefore, the advice of being on friendly terms with the pain is to check on the resistance. Again, without the right perspective on realities, it would be an ordeal to try not to have resistance to pain when aversion is happening.

So how do you relate to acceptance? Do you use it as a balm for life’s pains? Or as a catalyst for enquiries into the mysterious mindworks? Come and join me at WISE as we explore such interesting issues.

In grace, 
Nancy Cheah
21 Jun 2022