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

by Tara Brach

Radical Acceptance means bringing a clear, kind attention to our capacities and limitations without giving our fear-based stories the power to shut down our lives.

By accepting the truth of change, accepting that we don’t know how our life will unfold, we open ourselves to hope so that we can move forward with vitality and will.

Radical Acceptance is not self-indulgence. It does not say, “I accept that I have this lust or craving, and therefore I’ll act on it.” While it’s important not to deny or suppress our desires, it’s also important to be aware of what motivates us and the effects of our behavior.

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.

In contrast to orthodox notions of climbing up a ladder seeking perfection, psychologist Carl Jung describes the spiritual path as an unfolding into wholeness. Rather than trying to vanquish waves of emotion and rid ourselves of an inherently impure self, we turn around and embrace this life in all its realness—broken, messy, mysterious and vibrantly alive.

Buddhist mindfulness meditation called vipassana, which means “to see clearly” in Pali, the language of the Buddha. It is a practice based on teachings that explicitly acknowledged the suffering I was feeling and offered a way to awaken from it.

We would quiet the mind by concentrating on the breath or a sacred Sanskrit phrase. It was a valuable training, but I found that when I was in emotional turmoil, these meditations at best only temporarily covered over my distress. I was manipulating my inner experience rather than being with what was actually happening. The Buddhist mindfulness practices, on the other hand, taught me to simply open and allow the changing stream of experience to move through me. When a harsh self-judgment appeared, I could recognize it simply as a passing thought. It might be a tenacious and regular visitor, but realizing it wasn’t truth was wonderfully liberating. When I got lost in feelings of insecurity or loneliness, I found that the lovingkindness and compassion meditations could guide me back to that tenderness I had felt in the desert sanctuary. I was no longer striving to rid myself of pain, rather I was learning to relate to the suffering I felt with care.

The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.

There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

Guided Meditation: The Practice of Vipassana (Mindfulness) The Buddhist practice for developing mindfulness is called vipassana, which means “to see clearly” or “insight” in Pali, the language of the Buddha. What follows is a simple introduction to this practice. You might tape it or have someone read it to you until it becomes familiar. Find a sitting position that allows you to be alert—spine erect but not rigid—and also relaxed. Close your eyes and rest your hands in an easy, effortless way. Allow your awareness to scan through your body and, wherever possible, soften and release obvious areas of physical tension. Because we so easily get lost in thoughts, vipassana begins with attention to the breath. Using the breath as a primary anchor of mindfulness helps quiet the mind so that you can be awake to the changing stream of life that moves through you. Take a few very full breaths, and then allow your breath to be natural. Notice where you most easily detect the breath. You might feel it as it flows in and out of your nose; you might feel the touch of the breath around your nostrils or on your upper lip; or perhaps you feel the movement of your chest or the rising and falling of your abdomen. Bring your attention to the sensations of breathing in one of these areas, perhaps wherever you feel them most distinctly. There is no need to control the breath, to grasp or fixate on it. There is no “right” way of breathing. With a relaxed awareness, discover what the breath is r...

Learning to pause is the first step in the practice of Radical Acceptance. A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal. Unlike the frantic pilots, we stop asking, “What do I do next?”

Often the moment when we most need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so. Pausing in a fit of anger, or when overwhelmed by sorrow or filled with desire, may be the last thing we want to do.

the “secret” of spiritual life is the capacity to “… return to that which we have spent a lifetime hiding from, to rest in the bodily experience of the present moment—even if it is a feeling of being humiliated, of failing, of abandonment, of unfairness.” Through the sacred art of pausing, we develop the capacity to stop hiding, to stop running away from our experience. We begin to trust in our natural intelligence, in our naturally wise heart, in our capacity to open to whatever arises. Like awakening from a dream, in the moment of pausing our trance recedes and Radical Acceptance becomes possible.

we regularly exile the emotions that could elicit rejection from others. We might bury and forget our childlike excitement; ignore our anger until it becomes knots of tension in our body; cover our fears with endless self-judgment and blame. Our shadow is rooted in shame, bound by our sense of being basically defective.

The more deeply we feel flawed and unlovable, the more desperately we run from the clutches of the shadow. Yet by running from what we fear, we feed the inner darkness.

Any of us, when our particular place of insecurity or woundedness is touched, easily regress into the fullness of trance. At these times there seems to be no choice as to what we feel, think, say or do. Rather, we “go on automatic,” reacting in our most habitual way to defend ourselves, to cover over the rawness of our hurt.

As happens in any addiction, the behaviors we use to keep us from pain only fuel our suffering. Not only do our escape strategies amplify the feeling that something is wrong with us, they stop us from attending to the very parts of ourselves that most need our attention to heal.

When one partner chooses to avoid making hurtful comments or to listen more carefully, the other may become more relaxed, less defensive. While pausing might not necessarily salvage a crippled relationship, it invariably helps move it toward some resolution.

We learn Radical Acceptance by practicing pausing again and again. At the very moment when we’re about to lash out in verbal outrage, we don’t. When we feel anxious, instead of turning on the TV or making a phone call or mentally obsessing, we sit still and feel our discomfort or restlessness.

Pausing is the gateway to Radical Acceptance. In the midst of a pause, we are giving room and attention to the life that is always streaming through us, the life that is habitually overlooked.

Guided Reflection: The Sacred Pause The sacred pause helps us reconnect with the present moment. Especially when we are caught up in striving and obsessing and leaning into the future, pausing enables us to reenter the mystery and vitality only found here and now. Choose a time when you are involved in a goal-oriented activity—reading, working on the computer, cleaning, eating—and explore pausing for a moment or two. Begin by discontinuing what you are doing, sitting comfortably and allowing your eyes to close. Take a few deep breaths and with each exhale let go of any worries or thoughts about what you are going to do next; let go of any tightness in the body. Now, notice what you are experiencing as you inhabit the pause. What sensations are you aware of in your body? Do you feel anxious or restless as you try to step out of your mental stories? Do you feel pulled to resume your activity? Can you simply allow, for this moment, whatever is happening inside you?

Experiment by choosing one thing you do daily and make a weeklong commitment to pause before beginning this activity. It might be brushing your teeth, making a phone call, getting out of the car, taking a sip of tea, turning on your computer. Each time, take a few moments to pause, relax and bring awareness to what is happening within you. After you have completed the pause, notice if anything has changed when you return to doing.

When Mara visits us, in the form of troubling emotions or fearsome stories, we can say, “I see you, Mara,” and clearly recognize the reality of craving and fear that lives in each human heart. By accepting these experiences with the warmth of compassion, we offer Mara tea rather than fearfully driving him away. Seeing what is true, we hold what is seen with kindness.

One tool of mindfulness that can cut through our numbing trance is inquiry. As we ask ourselves questions about our experience, our attention gets engaged. We might begin by scanning our body, noticing what we are feeling, especially in the throat, chest, abdomen and stomach, and then asking, “What is happening?” We might also ask, “What wants my attention right now?” or, “What is asking for acceptance?” Then we attend, with genuine interest and care, listening to our heart, body and mind.

Inquiry is not a kind of analytic digging—we are not trying to figure out, “Why do I feel this sadness?”

the intention of inquiry is to awaken to our experience exactly as it is in this present moment. While inquiry may expose judgments and thoughts about what we feel is wrong, it focuses on our immediate feelings and sensations.

Naming or noting is another tool of traditional mindfulness practice that we can apply, as Carl did, when we’re lost. Mental noting, like inquiry, helps us recognize with care and gentleness the passing flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations. If I am feeling anxious and disconnected before giving a talk, for example, I often pause and ask myself what is happening or what wants my attention. With a soft mental whisper I’ll name what I am aware of: “afraid, afraid, tight, tight.” If I notice myself anxiously assuming that my talk will be boring and fall flat, I simply continue naming: “story about blowing it, fear of rejection,” then, “judging, judging.” If instead of noting I try to ignore this undercurrent of fear, I carry it into my talk and end up speaking in an unnatural and insincere way.

Like inquiry, noting is an opportunity to communicate unconditional friendliness to our inner life. If fear arises and we pounce on it with a name, “Fear! Gotcha!” we’re only creating more tension. Naming an experience is not an attempt to nail an unpleasant experience or make it go away. Rather, it is a soft and gentle way of saying, “I see you, Mara.” This attitude of Radical Acceptance makes it safe for the frightened and vulnerable parts of our being to let themselves be known.

The practices of inquiry and noting are actually ways to wake us up to the fact that we are suffering. Caught up in our stories, we can effectively deny the truth of our experience.

Recognizing that we are suffering is freeing—self-judgment falls away and we can regard ourselves with kindness.

Tired of the aversion, I decided that instead of resisting everything, I would agree to everything. I began to greet whatever arose in my awareness with a silently whispered “yes.” Yes to the pain in my leg, yes to the blaming thoughts, yes to the sneezes and the irritation and the gloomy gray sky.

The instant we agree to feel fear or vulnerability, greed or agitation, we are holding our life with an unconditionally friendly heart.

regardless of how our experience unfolds, by agreeing to what is here, we offer it the space to express and move through us.

Guided Meditation: The Power of Yes Sitting quietly, close your eyes and take a few full breaths. Bring to mind a current situation that elicits a reaction of anger, fear or grief. It may be a rift with your partner, the loss of a loved one, a power struggle with your child, a chronic illness, a hurtful behavior that you now regret. The more fully you get in touch with the charged essence of the story, the more readily you can access the feelings in your heart and throughout your body. What is it about this situation that provokes the strongest feelings? You might see a particular scene in your mind, hear words that were spoken, recognize a belief you hold about how this situation reflects on you or what it means for your future. Be especially aware of the feelings in your stomach, chest and throat. In order to see firsthand what happens when you resist experience, begin by experimenting with saying no. As you connect with the pain you feel in the situation you have chosen, mentally direct a stream of no at the feelings. No to the unpleasantness of fear, anger, shame or grief. Let the word carry the energy of no—rejecting, pushing away what you are experiencing. As you say no, notice what this resistance feels like in your body. Do you feel tightness, pressure? What happens to the painful feelings as you say no? What happens to your heart? Imagine what your life would be like if, for the next hours, weeks and months, you continued to move through the world with the thought...

Guided Meditation: Facing Difficulty and Naming What Is True Mental noting deepens our attention so we are better able to meet painful emotions and intense sensations with a wakeful and healing presence. Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and take a few full breaths. Is there some situation or issue in your life that you are grappling with? You might focus on an interpersonal conflict, financial pressure or stress at work. Ask yourself, “How am I feeling about this?” and bring a receptive presence to your body. Pay particular attention to your throat, chest and stomach. Is there tightness, pressure, heat? Is there a word that describes your experience—sad, restless, shaky, afraid? There is no need to strain, to run through a mental thesaurus to find the “right” word. Just notice what word arises in awareness and mentally repeat it to yourself in a soft tone. Sometimes there is no label that fits the mix of feelings that you are experiencing. In this case you might name one of the more dominant elements in the mix. The point is not to nail something down by getting it right, but to keep paying attention to the felt sense of what is real in this particular moment. After naming your experience, gently ask yourself, while paying close attention to the sensations in your body, “Is this true? Does this word describe what I am feeling now? If not, is there another word?” Continue in this way—mentally noting your unfolding experience and checking your body to see what is most tr...

Guided Meditation: Embracing Life with a Smile The compassionate Buddha is often seen in statues and pictures with a slight smile as he embraces the ten thousand joys and sorrows. When we meditate with the spirit of a smile, we awaken our natural capacity for unconditional friendliness. Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and let the natural rhythm of the breath help you to relax. Take a few moments to let go of obvious places of tightness and tension. Now, listening to sounds and becoming aware of the space around you, allow the curved image of a smile to appear in your mind. Notice how gentleness, kindness, openness and ease arise with the idea of a smile. Sense the curved relaxed smile fill your mind and extend outward into space. Now imagine a smile at the corner of both eyes and feel the sensations that arise there. Allow your brow to be smooth, the flesh around your eyes to be soft and relaxed. You might sense your eyes floating gently as if in a pool of warm water. Continue to soften and let go through the whole area around the eyes. Can you perceive a relaxed brightness there? Now bring a small but real smile to your lips—the half-smile of the Buddha—and allow the feeling to relax the muscles of your face. Let the jaw be relaxed and loose, and let the tip of the tongue lightly touch the roof of the mouth. Feel now how the eyes are smiling … the mouth is smiling … Bring the image of a smile to your throat and notice what happens. There might be a relaxing and openi...

All our reactions to people, to situations, to thoughts in our mind—are actually reactions to the kind of sensations that are arising in our body. When we become riveted on someone’s ineptness and are bursting with impatience, we are reacting to our own unpleasant sensations; when we are attracted to someone and filled with longing and fantasy, we are reacting to pleasant sensations. Our entire swirl of reactive thoughts, emotions and behaviors springs from this ground of reacting to sensations.

Because our pleasant or unpleasant sensations so quickly trigger a chain reaction of emotions and mental stories, a central part of our training is to recognize the arising of thoughts and return over and over to our immediate sensory experience.

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

“The cure for the pain is in the pain.”

Guided Meditation: Developing an Embodied Presence A mindful body scan is a valuable pathway to embodied presence. Sitting comfortably, close your eyes and take several long, deep breaths. Then rest in the natural flow of your breath and allow your body and mind to begin to settle. With a relaxed, open awareness, now begin a gradual and thorough scan of your entire body. Place your attention at the top of your head and without looking for anything in particular, feel the sensations there. Then letting your attention move down, feel the sensations on the back of your head, on either side of your head, through your ears. Notice the sensations through your forehead, eyes, nose, cheeks, jaw and mouth. Be as slow and thorough as you like. As you continue the scan, be careful not to use your eyes to direct your attention. (This will only create tension.) Rather, connect directly with sensations by feeling the body from within the body. In certain parts of the body it is common to feel numbness or for there to be no noticeable sensations. Let your attention remain in those areas for a few moments in a relaxed and easeful way. You may find that as your attention deepens, when you revisit these places, you become increasingly aware of sensations. Images or thoughts will naturally arise. Notice them passing through and gently return your attention to the sensations. Let your intention be to release all ideas and experience your physical aliveness exactly as it is. Place your attenti...

Guided Meditation: Radical Acceptance of Pain We cultivate Radical Acceptance of pain by relaxing our resistance to unpleasant sensations and meeting them with nonreactive awareness. This exercise is especially useful if you are presently distressed by physical pain. Find a comfortable position, sitting or lying down. Take a few moments to become still, relaxing with the natural rhythm of the breath. Gently scan through your body, relaxing your brow and jaw, dropping your shoulders and softening through your hands. Try not to create any unnecessary tension in your body. Where is the area of strong discomfort or pain that calls your attention? Bring a receptive attention directly to the unpleasant sensations in that part of your body. Notice what happens as you begin to be present with this pain. Is there an attempt, however subtle, to push the pain away? To cut it off, block it off, pull away? Is there fear? You might notice how the body and mind clench like a fist in an attempt to resist pain. Let your intention be to remain present, allowing the unpleasant sensations to be as they are. Soften any reaction against the pain, allowing the fist of resistance to unclench and open. The more you can connect with open and spacious awareness, the more you will be able to be present with sensations and allow them to unfold naturally. Experience your awareness as the soft space that surrounds the pain and allow the unpleasant sensations to float in this awareness. Resting in this o...

“life is suffering,” I of course thought it meant life is nothing more than misery and anguish. But the Buddha’s understanding of suffering was subtler and more profound. We are uncomfortable because everything in our life keeps changing—our inner moods, our bodies, our work, the people we love, the world we live in. We can’t hold on to anything—a beautiful sunset, a sweet taste, an intimate moment with a lover, our very existence as the body/mind we call self—because all things come and go. Lacking any permanent satisfaction, we continuously need another injection of fuel, stimulation, reassurance from loved ones, medicine, exercise, and meditation.

Chris believed that if he did not stand out as a special person, he was worthless. The need to be “number one” extended to dating, friendship and work. Unless he was the center of attention, he felt he was being overlooked or rejected. Admitting this in our therapy sessions was embarrassing—he felt something was wrong with him for being so dependent on outside recognition.

When we want loving attention, like Chris, we are feeling certain sensations in our body—perhaps the aching of longing around the heart, as well as excitement and openness. When the answer to our need and desire is no, the physical sensations of contraction we experience are intense. We feel shame—the desire to hide—and the danger of fear. When we experience this wanting and not getting over and over, we make an enduring association:Our wanting leads to fear and shame. This intense cluster of reactive feelings, locked in the body, forms the energetic core of a wanting self.

The tension and excitement of wanting arise, and we experience this as my longing for intimacy, my craving for touch and attention. In the same way, it’s my fear and shame when I am rejected. We consolidate our sense of a wanting self as we tell ourselves stories about what is happening: “Something is wrong with me for wanting so much. Why don’t I already have what I want? The world has it in for me, and I never get anything.”

If, like Chris, our needs for connection are consistently ignored or misunderstood, our wanting grows stronger, and we seek even more urgently the attention we crave. We spend our lives trying to get away from our painful feelings of fear and shame, disconnecting from and numbing our body, getting lost in self-judgment and obsessive thinking. But this only serves to increase our wanting and shame.

Our most regularly used strategies to get what we want also become a defining part of our sense of self. The overeating, the competing, the people pleasing, feel like me. As we immerse ourselves in the life-consuming pursuit of substitutes, we become increasingly alienated from our authentic desires, our deepest longings for love and belonging.

Our efforts in pursuit of substitutes preoccupy and distract our attention enough to shield us for a time from the raw sensations of feeling unloved or unworthy. Accomplishing things does temporarily stave off my feelings of inadequacy. Yet underneath, my wanting self urges me on, fearful that without being productive I’ll lose everything,

Even when we are engaged in activities that are meaningful to us, that are creatively and spiritually gratifying, they can be “co-opted” and used to satisfy the unmet needs of the wanting self.