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

by Tara Brach

Radical Acceptance does not make us passive. A friend of mine, who is an environmental activist, recently told me if she accepted the degradation of our environment, she would no longer be an active agent for change. An abused woman I saw in therapy told me if she accepted the way her husband was treating her, she would lose her capacity to take care of herself. Students often challenge me: Wouldn’t Radical Acceptance mean accepting Hitler’s mass extermination of people, or simply allowing racism, war and famine to exist in the world? Does Radical Acceptance mean we don’t respond to suffering in the world? When we feel outrage at human atrocities or despair over the degradation of our environment, we are powerfully and rightfully moved to do something about them. When we see how our own behavior or that of others causes suffering, we are naturally compelled to initiate change. Throughout our lives, these strong responses guide us to pursue spiritual practices and healing therapies, to choose political affiliations, to decide whom we spend time with, what projects to undertake and how to raise our children. Yet there is a difference between actions and decisions that arise from Radical Acceptance and those that reflexively spring from our grasping after certain outcomes and our fear of certain consequences.