I have been thinking about acceptance yet again and its relationship to the Buddhist concept of 'not knowing' lately, and how not knowing helps clarify some aspects of acceptance as a way of life.
Acceptance, at its best, is the practice of receiving life rather than meeting it with a "story"---a slant on reality. When we in recovery say that acceptance is our way of life we are really saying that we strive to meet each day with fresh eyes, trying not only to live one day at a time but also to live "present to the day." To live present to the day is to greet each as much of our day as we can anew and with gratitude instead of blanketing everything with a glowering "there they go again" attitude when things are not going our way, either in politics or in our personal life.
Acceptance means remembering "it's not about me."
The Buddhists call this practice of receiving life without pre-judgment or "not knowing." Buddhists say that when we see a bird through the category or word of mockingbird or pigeon or owl we often don't see the miracle of this bird, this slice of life itself that is shimmering before our eyes.
Instead we sweep our eyes over everything around us, dropping it all into one verbal box or another, people, things, and events. While we cannot escape categorizing the world around us, we can still practice being open to receiving others and the world afresh as much as we can, day by day, and it can really change our lives.
Knowing is not always what is cracked up to be, as I have written before. What we know quite often gets us into trouble. When we pre-judge we see with our measuring eye we almost never catch what is new and unnoticed in given situation. The world becomes a passing and familiar scene, the kingdom of the lost.
I've just finished a blog entry on health care reform that's filled with my own ideas about what's happening in the world of politics: sectional politics is defeating progressive policy yet one more time.
While I am pretty sure that I have sized up what's happening fairly well, and that we are likely to fail at our main chance, once again, I also have wound up closing myself off to the rest of the day in a fog of resentment and burning anger.
What is worse, my preoccupation with this crucial issue can turn me into a chronic complainer, not to say a chronic bore.
The Serenity Prayer divides reality up into the things we cannot change and the things we can and the wisdom to know the difference. It may well be that the main thing we can change is our perceptions of the world, our 'stories' about what is happening that we carry around in our heads.
I cannot change what's not happening in Washington right now. It is more than likely that I will go to my grave not knowing whether the United States will ever give progressive politics a chance.
But I can change my attitude and stance to the day at hand. I can watch the Daily Show and at least get a good laugh at our most recent unpleasantness.
And I can devote the most of my days to receiving the miracle of life itself that comes, shining through, this sorry mess we call national politics.
There is so much we cannot change and acceptance means embracing that fact with realism and humor and even a distant hope.
At the same time, there is so much that is left over, so much of life itself that is new and fresh and exciting, and this we can receive, even as we also receive the bad news from nowhere.
For example, I just spent 4 days in Neuvo Casas Grande, Chihuahua and other close-by places and was introduced to a Mexico I have never seen, a Mexico where Mexicans and Mormons and Mennonites live together in a world I never expected. Colonia Juarez, where the Mormon public school---Academia Juarez--- is located, is absolutely beautiful and surprising. The school was established by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1897 and goes from the 7th to the 12th grade.
All of this is just four hours from Bisbee. Visiting there with four other students enrolled in an intensive Spanish class, the world of national politics slipped mercifully away.
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