Reading from Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, Ph.D., pp. 24-25

Mohini was a regal white tiger who lived for many years at the Washington, C.C. National Zoo. For most of those years her home was in the old lion house—a typical twelve-by-twelve-foot cage with iron bars and a cement floor. Mohini spent her days pacing restlessly back and forth in her cramped quarters. Eventually, biologists and staff worked together to create a natural habitat for her. Covering several acres, it had hills, trees, a pond and a variety of vegetation. With excitement and anticipation they released Mohini into her new and expansive environment. But it was too late. The tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound, where she lived for the remainder of her life. Mohini paced and paced in that corner until an area twelve by twelve feet was worn bare of grass.

Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. Entangled in the trance of unworthiness, we grow accustomed to caging ourselves in with self-judgment and anxiety, with restlessness and dissatisfaction. Like Mohini, we grow incapable of accessing the freedom and peace that are our birthright.

Sermon

         Radical Acceptance is a Buddhist concept that embraces five of the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism: dignity and worth of every person, justice and compassion in human relationships, acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning and the interdependence of all things. You might know that the third source from which we draw our inspiration is World Religions. So we are being authentically Unitarian Universalist when we consider a concept from world religions. The foundational belief of Buddhism is that life is full of suffering. For a good context, it might be useful to remind ourselves of the story of the Buddha.

         Prince Siddartha Gautama was born 2,500 years ago in the foothills of the Himalayas. The astrologer told the king that his son could either become a great warrior king, conquering many lands, or a holy man if he were to witness human suffering. The king did not want his son to become a holy man and so he hid from his son all human suffering by surrounding him with youth, beauty, health and all the good things that money could buy. As a teen-ager, Siddartha escaped the stifling, pampered environment of the palace and went to see the world outside. What he saw shocked him. He saw disease, poverty, old age, anger, sadness, and so on. All this convinced him that life inside the palace was illusion and life outside the palace was suffering.

         Siddartha left the palace, including his wife and young son, and became a monk. He wanted to find out the solution to the problems of life by meditating for years underneath the spreading pepul tree, now called the bodhi tree. This is where he came to understand the solution to life’s suffering, which is two-fold: self awareness (or true wakefulness) and compassion. He spent the next 40 years wandering and preaching what he understood. (His teachings became a reform movement of Hinduism and over the years many of its teachings were folded into Hinduism. Buddhism is almost extinct in the land of its birth—India—although the presence of the Dalai Lama’s home there has stimulated great interest in it nowadays.)

         The solution to suffering taught by the Buddha is called the Middle Path or the Middle Way. The concept of Radical Acceptance is part of the Middle Way. The radical in radical acceptance means root, or root cause. We need to find the root cause of the discomfort that causes suffering. So when we radically accept something within us we are looking for the root, or foundational cause.

         It took me a very long time to accept that much of life is suffering because you see, I am an optimist and I tend to look at the positive side of things, which also leads me to naturally avoid the negative or ignore that it exists. I’m still optimistic but nowadays I’m more realistic. I recognize that there are, of course, moments of great joy and happiness. But there is also quite the opposite—suffering. Again, by suffering, we really mean an unhappy state of being of anger, despair, worry, sadness, hurt, loneliness, and so on.

         Buddhism looks closely at our interior life and finds there much that is not joy. (Buddhism is often called the psychological religion.) They say that our modern world’s constant clamoring after entertainment, consumerism, addictions to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, achievement, work, and so on are symptoms of pushing away suffering, ways of not coming to terms with what life is about. These pushing away activities simple continue our suffering but mask it. (This doesn’t mean that food and entertainment within reason are not good. We should always aim for balance!)

         Dr. Tara Brach, a raised Unitarian, details her own life of fevered achievement that had as its driving force her own deep down feelings of inadequacy. Her training as a Buddhist and as a psychotherapist convinced her from her own vast experience that some Buddhist techniques can help us alleviate our suffering by living the Middle Way. It requires that we get into touch with not only our thoughts and feelings but also with how thoughts and feelings are expressed in our body.

         She cautions us that the western foundational myth of the Garden of Eden and its two fallen occupants, Adam and Eve, expresses western belief that there is something radically wrong with humankind and whether we believe it or not, it has had a subtle and negative effect on our culture. Buddhism, like Unitarian Universalism, holds that human beings are basically good although humanly flawed. Buddhism teaches that awareness and compassion are our true nature but unless we awaken to this true nature, we will always be subject to suffering. They say that we are all “Buddahs-to-be,” or “enlightened-ones-to-be.” How do you like that? You are a Buddha-to-be! Believe it; it’s true!

         So what does suffering look like (as if we didn’t know! )? Tara Brach tells the story of Laura who was afraid her marriage would fail if she were not able to control her rages. Laura had grown up with an extremely critical mother and still had to deal with this criticism at family gatherings. When any disapproval, real or imagined, came her way from anyone Laura pushed it away with anger and blaming of the person who caused it. Tara asked Laura what happened about her latest drama when she resigned her job as a nurse. When Laura was telling the story, Tara asked her what she was aware of in her body, she responded, “My face is burning … there’s a huge swelling pressure in my chest that feels like it’s going to explode.” In the days and weeks that followed, Laura interpreted how it felt in her body when she recalled the many dramas that troubled her. Whenever Laura identified great bodily reactions, Tara asked her to send compassion t o herself. She asked Laura to say something like, “I care about this suffering.” Little by little, Laura learned to pause in the moment when the overwhelming feelings of real or supposed criticism occurred, acknowledge her reaction and choose how to respond, taking some deep breaths to help her. As time went on, Laura was able to see the places of hurt that other people came from, even that of her still extremely critical mother.

         The point is that taking the Middle Way of pausing, or being mindful in the moment to gain the greatest awareness of what really is for you, and then bringing compassion to bear are the two components of Radical Acceptance of the self.

         Here is a story of Jacob who “had occasionally given talks about Buddhism to local groups and had accepted an invitation to address a gathering of over a hundred meditation students….He was a 70-year old man in middle-stage Alzheimer’s disease. He suddenly didn’t know what he was supposed to say or do or why he was there. All he knew was that his heart was pounding furiously and his mind was spinning in confusion. Putting his palms together at his heart, Jacob started naming out loud what was happening: ‘Afraid, embarrassed, confused, feeling like I’m failing, powerless, shaking, sense of dying, sinking, lost.’ He continued in this way until his body began to relax and his mind grew calmer, he also noted that aloud. At last Jacob lifted his head, looked slowly around at those gathered, and apologized.” (p. 71-72, Brach) Jacob’s teary-eyed students had just received an amazing demonstration of awareness and self-compassion and no doubt they sent compassion to Jacob. Rather th an pushing away his experience and deepening his agitation, Jacob had the courage and training simply to name what he was aware of, and, most significantly, to bow to his experience. (I believe it would be rare for us to encounter a person handling their own Alzheimer’s disease in this way!)

         What we are saying here is when sadness or frustration presents itself we honor our own inner life by doing two things:

         1) One, instead of pushing it away with activity or addiction, a more beneficial way is to pause and acknowledge where you are, name it, name where you feel it in the body and

         2) Two, bring compassion to the experience, perhaps by saying, “I care about this suffering.”

         By doing these two things, we will have awakened to the experience, not pushed it away.

         Embracing our sadnesses and hurts is saying “Yes!” to life, all the life that is ours. Then, little by little, and after much practice, there is no need to push life away with all the things of our modern world that only deaden our experience. Thich Nhat Hanh ended his unison reading this morning with, “…let us practice the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.” He calls this “true freedom,” freedom from suffering. All of this isn’t to say that we should not have fun! But the fun we have is wholesome and chosen from health rather than being a temporary antidote to suffering.

         So let us have a smile experience: A pilot is flying three people in a private plane - a Tibetan lama, and Bill Gates (the smartest man in the world), and a hippie. Suddenly the pilot announces to his three passengers: "I have bad news for you. The plane is going to crash. We have to bail out now. Unfortunately, we have only three parachutes. And since I am a terrific pilot, and I don't see any reason why I should die, I am taking one of them. Good luck!" And with that, he jumped out of the plane.

         Bill Gates said: "Since I am the smartest man in the world, and very valuable to civilization, I am also going to take a parachute and save myself." And with that, he leapt out of the plane.

         The lama said to the hippie: "I have already lived a long and fruitful life and have no need to live longer. Therefore, you may take the remaining parachute."

         "Relax, mannnn," said the hippie, putting the parachute on to the lama's back. "The smartest man in the world just strapped himself into my backpack."

         Seriously though, perhaps practicing Radical Acceptance seems to you to be self indulgent. Well, yes, if we stopped there. The goal of addressing our own stuff is so that we can see and send compassion for the suffering of others. We aim to always widen the circle of compassion. But it must begin with the self. You have heard it said that if you want to change the world, begin with yourself.

References

The following book inspired and informed this sermon. I hope you will read it. It is a surprisingly easy read.

Brach, Tara, Ph.D. Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha, New York: Bantam Books, 2003.