Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha

by Tara Brach

No longer afraid or contracted, we know our deepest essence as the pure, wakeful awareness that beholds, with love, all of creation.

Happiness cannot be found through great effort and will power, But is already there, in relaxation and letting-go. Don’t strain yourself, there is nothing to do… Only our search for happiness prevents us from seeing it… Don’t believe in the reality of good and bad experiences; They are like rainbows. Wanting to grasp the ungraspable, you exhaust yourself in vain. As soon as you relax this grasping, space is there —open, inviting, and comfortable. So, make use of it. All is yours already. Don’t search any further… Nothing to do. Nothing to force, Nothing to want, —and everything happens by itself.

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form, form is not other than emptiness.” The formless ocean of awareness gives rise to the varying and endless waves of life: emotions, trees, people, stars. Seeing that all of life springs from one awareness, we realize our connectedness and feel the fullness of love. In cherishing all living beings with compassion, we recognize the empty, wakeful awareness that is our common source.

Sometimes our deepest realization of the interdependence of love and emptiness comes when we are facing the anguish of loss.