"Accept the unacceptable - only then will it leave you." So said Jean-Marc Mantel, a wise psychiatrist and savant of spirituality, at the Mindfulness conference in Bristol last summer. It was in response to a question regarding the difficulty of accepting the unexpected death of a loved one.
"Accept the unacceptable - only then will it leave you"
What is the unacceptable? When you explore this, you will find it always has to do with Time. Time changes all things, all things change in time. Nothing remains unchangeable. Whether it is the holiday on a Turkish beach, a happy Christmas with your family or the eventide falling after a walk in the wilderness, "All good things come to an end," as my Dad used to say whenever I was grumbling in a childhood discontent. But so too do the quarrels and strife of relationships, the car crash, the wars and rebellions . Whether good or bad, all things change. As the Buddha said to Ananda who was weeping over his beloved teacher’s approaching death: "Do you not yet know, Ananda, that all compounded things must fall apart?" And indeed all things are 'compounded'.
While we find the relief of change from the 'bad' encouraging if not blissful, we are saddened or distraught by the ending of events that have made us happy. This is due to our attachment to things that bring us happiness, reward, status or credential. I, you, me, – we are all the same in our addictions to self-security, reputation or advancement, health and freedom from worry. When things become unacceptable, we may become lost in distress of many kinds. Only acceptance can cure this. So what is appropriate acceptance?
The word 'accept' is a tricky one. It can mean a fatalistic giving up in the face of adversity. I accept, I say, with my hands in the air in surrender handing over to the will of adversity. Yet 'accept' can also mean a willingness to face the ‘facts’ and from that basis to do something about it.
But Time ? What can one do about that?
We need to understand that Time is nothing other than the flow of events endlessly moving from cause to effect in complex patterns as the Universe unfolds. As the Buddha saw, this is the first law needed for understanding. Every apparent thing is 'empty' of permanence. Further more, because every apparent thing is itself endlessly changing there can be no absolute thing. Things are ‘empty’ of any fixed 'self'. When we look into the functioning of our own minds we find that is as true inwardly as it is outwardly.
In Zazen, we sit in Time but as we develop calmness we find that Time changes as we loose attachment to the apparent events it holds within its grasp. Time becomes stilled in a vast presence within the endless present moment of being. A sort of 'eternity' is felt within which time happens. It runs along and at such moments of present stillness this seeming eternity becomes real in us. Meditators find in such stillness the relief from time-anchored anxiety that they seek. Everything is relative and in seeing the process of mutual relativity between all things there is no thing one need or indeed can attach to. Realisation in experience heals these hurts. "There is no time – so what is memory" as one hua-tou asks.
This is why trivial practice needs deeper investigation on intensive retreat. The discovery of a vastness within time is subjective and does not occur either through wanting it or in hurrying. Several days of tranquillity are essential before such Clarity can arise.
In my recent book (World Crisis and Buddhist Humanism), I have tried to show how these insights may be applied to the problems besetting us in the current world situation. Clearly in political strife, whether of national, cultural or racial origin, what is needed is negotiation resting in a basis of dispassion – a reliance on reflection on the whole rather than a reactive attachment to a defended half. Acceptance of other’s viewpoints as negotiable and understandable is the key. But problems today take us beyond this simple solution.
Few of us have yet realised the true immensity of the triple problem besetting our entire world culture today. Dependent on an economy based in energy from fossil fuels we resist the idea of 'Peak Oil' – the awareness that our supply of fossil energy is now running down, we are past the 'peak' of its exploitation and we are running out – much faster than perhaps we think. Our usage of such fuels has blown carbon clouds into the atmosphere generating planetary warming and accompanying climate change that can herald regional disasters.
These in turn will wreck our economic structure depriving us of the resources and finance to tackle the problem, Without attention, these three processes will wreck our economies so that resources and money will not be available to bring about a cure . These three processes have already begun and are so frightening that many people and their views expressed in the media fall repeatedly into denial – a refusal to accept the facts and to dream on as if such change was not already underway .
All of us, and Buddhists especially because of our wisdom lineages, need to face up to these potentially impending horrors. When we come to terms with the issue of Time we can begin to see the personal mode of transition we need to follow in growing a new world of less self-addicted cultures, social groups and individuals.
My message to you today is this. Tonight, as you sit, contemplate these realities that face us all. What is your own attitude? Is it adequate? Do you see the Dharma view? How can you face up to these realities and help others to resist their tendencies to a denial that in an eventual collective panic can lead to disaster?
Sit – contemplate – regain your vision. Accept the unacceptable – only then will it leave you. And there is work to be done.
Chuan-deng Jing-di
