The Deepest Acceptance

We can see the messiness and beauty of day-to-day human existence as something to be avoided, transcended, or even obliterated, or we can see it for what it really is: a secret and constant invitation to wake up now, even if we believe we already woke up yesterday.

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

I teach one thing and one thing only: a deep and fearless acceptance of whatever comes your way.

look at what the man was actually experiencing, you see someone feeling utterly frustrated, feeling like a total fool and a failure as a father and as a man, feeling powerless and helpless and weak, and desperately seeking a way out of his predicament. And you see someone not able to admit any of this, to himself or to his children. Underneath our

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.

Freedom is always about what’s true, right now—not what I think is true, not what I’ve been told is true, not what I believe is true, not what my spiritual teacher told me was true, but what is actually true in this moment, in this present experience, in these thoughts, these sensations, these feelings. True freedom is about admitting what’s true.

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!”

Existence is rich with mystery and wonder, and sometimes, without warning, light can shine through the cracks in the separate self. For a few brief moments, there is the cosmic suggestion that life is somehow infinitely more than what it appears to be. The most ordinary of things can easily turn extraordinary, making us wonder if, perhaps, the extr

The shadow side of spiritual teachings is that the mind can easily use them to deny reality—and then deny that it is denying reality! Real spirituality has nothing to do with this kind of denial. Real spirituality is the end of denial. And we come out of denial totally when we simply admit the truth of this moment, however painful that admission ma