On Acceptance | How do I accept World War 3? Part 1

Acceptance of life as it manifests, in all its forms, is a basic tenet of the Buddha’s teaching. However, the word ‘acceptance’ is often misunderstood. In this two part blog, Anna Aysea explores acceptance as an awakening to a more insightful understanding of reality.

The radio show I was listening to recently had a guest on who spoke about her experience of a panic attack during a hike, alone in the mountains, while descending a particularly challenging and steep section. As she heard the sound of dislodged small rocks rapidly falling into the precipice next to the narrow path, she froze and started to experience racing thoughts: “Oh this is bad.. I don’t want this.. I am going to fall, I am going to die in a minute… no.. no.. no.. oh I want to get out of here…get me out of here..”. At some point she recognized her thinking was not very helpful and she intuitively started to talk to herself out loud as if speaking to a toddler, saying: “Its Okay Jane, just breath now and see if you can feel your feet, are they both on the ground? Yes they are, good, excellent! Now, put your left hand on the rock beside you, yes very good! Okay, see if you now can move your right foot two inches to the left, yes, excellent!”. This way she was able to get herself out of the panic state and safely make the difficult descent. She said that speaking to yourself as if talking to a child helps you to get a grip on fear because it is a form of positive thinking and positive motivation.

The path from resistance to acceptance
Focusing on the positive can of course be good in dealing with challenging situations, I feel however that what truly worked here was the simple fact that this hiker was able to stop resisting. What she describes is the transition from: “No.. no.. no..I don’t want this, get me out of here!” to “Okay, lets look at this situation right here, right now, and see; what do I need to do?” The first position is fear, despair, resistance, rejection, the second position is open acceptance, trust, not-knowing.

Notice that it is not about acceptance of “I am going to die” – that thought is a mind projection into the future – rather it is the acceptance of reality in the now – standing with both feet on the ground in this case – and just leaving the projection for what it is for a moment. Notice also that trust is a state of open willingness, not ” trust in Something”. The state of open acceptance comes about by recognizing thoughts / mind activity for what it is, ceasing resistance, and simply being fully present in the now: “What is good to do now? What is the next step?”. The path from resistance to acceptance is the way to discern right action.

The News
We are facing bleak times which may even get bleaker. Listening to the news seems to hold the same challenges as standing on the edge of a precipice. News about wars that are ongoing or that have recently erupted, more escalations on the horizon for the very near future, with political leaders fueling divisiveness. Even the possibility of a World War 3 is now being mentioned . All this easily triggers fear driven projections, which are further multiplied by a media that has an incentive to exactly do that, as fear commands attention and increases news consumption, which in turn serves the underlying revenue model.

So what do you do when you find yourself in the grip of fear for the state of the world, for the possibility of World War 3? What do you do when your thought process echos: “Oh this is bad.. no.. no.. no.. I don’t want this.. get me /us out of here!”? How do you transition from resistance and rejection to open acceptance in the face of war, in the face of atrocities?

To investigate these questions, it is helpful to have a brief look at the three main aspects that are involved: acceptance, imagination and fear.

Acceptance | What it is not
Acceptance may be one of the most misunderstood terms in the Buddhist teaching. Most of us may have tried to practice acceptance in one or more of the following ways only to realize that it doesn’t quite work that way.

First of all, acceptance is not the same as passivity;  If I am able to act and change a situation for the better but I remain passive, that doesn’t sit right. Acceptance is not subservience either; Accepting everything my guru, my master or my tradition tells me without questioning, without investigating is not acceptance, it is dependency. Subservience combined with inadequacy is often mistaken for acceptance but is far from it; To think: “I am going to die, I don’t want that, but Buddhist teaching / my master says I must accept, so I must somehow learn to accept death.” is not acceptance, it is delusion. When I fail to accept death – and I will because accepting a mind projection as reality cannot be done – I feel inadequate because I erroneously think: it is just me who is failing, everyone else seems to be perfectly able to do it. Now I have completely lost my way in trying to follow Buddhist teaching.

Acceptance
Ultimately, acceptance is about reality. The thought “I am going to die” is not reality in the now – I am not dead or I would not be heaving a thought – it is a mind projection into the future and needs to be recognized as such. Trying to accept a mind projection as reality is a fools errand.

An arising thought – be that a projection or otherwise – can and should of course always be acknowledged and accepted as an activity of the mind. The problem arises when we mistake a thought for reality and then convince ourselves that we can accept that so called “reality”. That is not accepting reality, we are simply being tricked by the creative power of our own mind, tricked by the power of imagination.

Part two will continue the investigation on how to transition from resistance to acceptance in the face of the state of the world, and the role imagination and fear play in the arising of resistance.