The great way is not difficult if you just don’t pick and choose.
— Sengcan
Acceptance is one way of saying “don’t react” or “be in response.” The great Indian teacher J. Krishnamurti put it this way: “I don’t mind what’s happening.” From a legend about Buddha as a boy: “Here, not picking and choosing is something a boy wanders into; it is the natural state of an undisturbed mind. Then the boy notices that thoughts and feelings are always rising and that they are not themselves disturbing: thoughts and feelings are things in the world as much as flowers and parasols, and he doesn’t have to either agree with them or quarrel with them. He feels a happiness not born of desire.”[i]
The boy is in the present moment and in response to what is. He doesn’t mind what’s happening.
I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content.
— Philippians 4: 11
[i] Schaef, Anne Wilson. When Society Becomes an Addict. New York: Harper, 1987, p. 38.
