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

by Tara Brach

Our emotions, even the afflictive ones like fear and anger, have the potential to transmute into spiritual medicine when we see that their very essence is life loving life. As Indian mystic Sri Nisargadatta teaches, “Life is love and love is life. The means and forms may be wrong, but the motive behind is always love.” Consider this: Fear is life trying to protect life. Anger is life trying to protect vulnerability and defend against threat. Shame is trying to defend against rejection. Guilt is trying to improve us, to make us our best selves. Misinterpreting and reacting do not change the fundamental intention of emotions, which is simply life seeking to perpetuate itself, to survive and thrive.

I’ve found that the sooner I can remember that emotions are trying to help me, the more quickly I can attend in a way that allows the energy to untwist and serve healing and awakening. Especially when I am gripped by fear, if I tell myself: “This is life loving life. The fear belongs, it’s part of human aliveness,” I can then hold the feeling with more openness, clarity and care.

However difficult an emotion feels, you can trust it as an invitation to awaken to the truth of your belonging. And the more you know this belonging in a cellular way, the more you will naturally contribute to bringing more love into our world.

Repetition of the process is what changes deeply ingrained habits—the anxious preoccupations, defensiveness, blame or self-judgments that imprison our hearts. If instead of feeding limiting beliefs and addictive or reactive behaviors, you frequently interrupt them with a mindful and kind presence, you are creating the grounds for fresh choices and new possibilities in your life.

Whenever we wholeheartedly attend to the person we’re with, to the tree in our front yard or to a squirrel perched on a branch, this living energy becomes an intimate part of who we are. Spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti wrote that “to pay attention means we care, which means we really love.” Attention is the most basic form of love. By paying attention we let ourselves be touched by life, and our hearts naturally become more open and engaged.

Even if we don’t like someone, seeing their vulnerability allows us to open our heart to them. We might vote against them in an election, we might never invite them to our home, we might even feel they should be imprisoned to protect others. Still, our habitual feelings of attraction and aversion do not have to overrule our basic capacity to see that, like us, they suffer and long to be happy. When we see who is really in front of us, we don’t want them to suffer. Our circle of compassion naturally widens to include them.

But often enough our resentment of others reflects our resentment of ourselves. When someone rejects us, he or she might be reinforcing a view we already hold—that we’re not good enough, not kind enough, not lovable enough.

Whether we are angry with ourselves or others, we forgive by letting go of blame and opening to the pain we have tried to push away.

From a Buddhist perspective, when we can regard our mistakes and transgressions with the eyes of compassion, we release the ignorance that keeps us bound in hating and blaming ourselves. We see that our imperfections don’t taint our basic goodness. This is what it means to feel forgiven. Aware of our true nature, we know nothing is wrong.

Not forgiving hardens and imprisons our heart. If we feel hatred toward anyone, we remain chained to the sufferings of the past and cannot find genuine peace. We forgive for the freedom of our own heart.

“Anger is initiatory, not transformative.” Hatred and anger may start us on the path to positive change, but they do not themselves lead to a more just and loving world.

When we forgive, we stop rigidly identifying others by their undesirable behavior. Without denying anything, we open our heart and mind wide enough to see the deeper truth of who they are. We see their goodness. When we do, our hearts naturally open in love.

When we are trapped in the trance of feeling separate and unworthy, Buddha nature appears to be outside of us. Spiritual awakening, if it is even possible for this flawed self, seems to be far away, in another time or place. We might imagine that realization happened only in Asia, centuries ago, or only in monasteries, or to those who are far more devoted and disciplined than we are. Even if we follow their path, we may be like the musk deer. We may spend our lives seeking something that is actually right inside us, and could be found if we would only stop and deepen our attention. But distracted, we spend our life on our way to somewhere else.