Acceptance

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

Acceptance

[i]     Schaef, Anne Wilson. When Society Becomes an Addict. New York: Harper, 1987, p. 38.

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