"This courage to see clearly what is before us, around us, and within us applies as well to the largest acceptance of all — that we will die. In accepting death, we can see more easily where we can live. In accepting that we have no control over the stream of life, we can see more easily the gestures we do have control of, which sages refer to as our chance to steer in the stream. In accepting that life is relentless in its rush of experience, we can see more easily where it is tender and wondrous. In facing the harsher ways of those we love, we can ask for authentic relationship and accept the hard work of how to get there.
"In our modern world, acceptance is often misconstrued as resignation, as acquiescing or giving up. In actuality, as you can see, it is acceptance that makes right action possible. If you wake in a strange room, it is acceptance of all the walls that lets you find the doorway out. If you are suddenly crossing the loft of an old barn that is on fire, it is acceptance of where the planks have rotted that lets you step on the beams that remain solid. Just in this way, if you wake in a room of takers, it is acceptance of their self-centeredness that lets you find the one set of open arms that will lead you out. And when you find yourself crossing the old barn of your past which has suddenly caught aflame, it is acceptance of what can no longer bear your weight that lets you stand on the few solid things that will hold you up. Accepting what-is often lets us find our way through difficulty.
"Over the years, I have been broken of my stubbornness into accepting a great many things. Though I started out trying to fill my loneliness by chasing after others, I had to accept that no one could find the roots in that dark hole but me. Though I started out determined to achieve greatness as a poet, like Icarus, the closer I got to the Source, the more it melted me back into my humanness. And though, during my days of cancer, I wanted to be spared from my suffering, I was humbled to lay flat on the earth where I finally heard the fire at the center. I can only admit that, starting out with dreams of being a great conductor, I landed as a thorough note in hopes of being sung. And I am happier for it.
"Everywhere we turn, there is a need for some form of acceptance. For loss is not alterable. No matter what we try to do or say, we cannot restore what is lost or mask the feelings of grief that loss engenders. So the gateway to meaning is not in avoiding loss or getting over loss, but in the effort to accept what-is while keeping our heart open. We lose access to what is real when we try to make something else happen that will preoccupy us or divert us from the fact of our loss. I did this in working hard to maintain the illusion of a friendship that meant so much to me, when in my heart, after thirty years, I knew that our bond had been cut. I just couldn't accept it. It was too painful. I then plummeted inward, and it became harder to surface at all. My refusal to accept what had happened and my inwardness about it only made things worse. Grief will do this to us. Too often we privatize our grief and circle each other in our personal versions of hell.
"In Europe in the 1800s, those who had lost someone wore a black band on their arm to let everyone know that they were grieving. It was refreshing that this made grief public and communal. Custom was that you would do this for a year. The implication, however, was that, by the end of the first year of living without the one you lost, you should have sufficiently grieved and moved on. But ultimately, we live through things and with things. We do not get over things. In truth, grief rings like an echo that doesn't stop, and thins to a frequency below the normal hearing of those who have not yet grieved. The truth is that as long as we believe the goal is to get over such things, we will lack the inner skill of living with such things. And all the while, loss and grief keep thinning till they sound under our breath in the skin of our ear and in the muscle of our heart.
"Our obsession with avoiding grief is the major obstacle to experiencing true freedom of the heart. At the same time, grief is the chief practice ground for acceptance. Such acceptance, not on an intellectual level, but in the belly of our days, is a way to kneel by the endless stream that runs through all of life. Whether we drop to our knees or are brought to our knees, drinking from that stream is what makes us wholehearted.
"Such acceptance can cleanse us of our suffering through surrender. Such a journey leaves us humbled and compassionate while still here on earth. Often, when things are difficult, all we can do is stay true to what we feel. Often, all we can do is trust this acceptance which seems so hard to enter."
