The Deepest Acceptance

let’s simply note that in every experience of suffering, when you take the focus off the details of the situation, off the story of what’s happening, off the external circumstances, and really come back to your present experience—to present thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the body—you will always find seeking, even if that seeking is playing

As human beings, we do very complicated, dangerous, and even violent things to escape the discomfort of present experience. But what is happening underneath is always very simple: we are resisting what is.

To accept thoughts and feelings is to simply, gently, effortlessly notice that, in this moment, those thoughts and feelings are already accepted, that they have already been allowed in. They are already here. Accepting is not a time-bound achievement, but a never-ending present-moment reality. You cannot accept—for what you are is acceptance itself

The moment you come to a mental conclusion about a sensation, in a sense you’ve stopped seeing and feeling, really feeling, what’s actually there. You’ve moved into a mental story about your experience. So come back to what’s actually happening and take another look now.

Can you find the one who hears, the one who sees, the one who thinks? Or is the reality much, much simpler—that sounds appear, seeing happens, thoughts arise—and it’s simply another thought that says, “I’m doing that!”

let’s just say that from a place of deep acceptance of the way things are, in seeing the inherent perfection of life itself, one is still totally free to do what one is moved to do—to help, to change things, to make a difference. It’s just that our actions are no longer coming from the root assumption that reality is broken and needs to be fixed an

We are at war with the opposites; we reject any opposite that doesn’t match our image of ourselves, and we don’t realize something very important: in reality, there are no opposites. Opposites are a creation of the mind.

Even in the midst of the noisiest thoughts, there is something here that is very quiet—something that is deeply at peace. It’s what you are. It watches all thoughts as they come and go. It allows all thoughts to come and go.

We are afraid to allow the most “negative” thoughts, because we are afraid of what they say about us, and we somehow imagine that allowing them to be there, in the space of who we are, will mean they will take us over. In fact, it’s the other way around—when we reject thoughts, try to escape them, and punish ourselves for thinking them, they tend t

All thoughts and feelings are allowed to come and go in what you are. • Deep acceptance is not something you achieve—it’s what you are in your essence. What you are is the open space in which all waves of experience are allowed to come and go.