by Bruce Tift
For instance, perhaps I have accepted the painful reality that my history has left me with the identity drama of feeling like a disappointment to others. I can stay in my body and feel this disturbance; it’s not harming me, and I can even be kind to it. I may have this issue triggered off and on the rest of my life. So what? I’ll work with it. Now that I don’t have to heal or fix this experience, I may still want to have it activated less frequently. It’s out of date; I don’t need it anymore. At this point, I may choose to investigate my relation with anger. How would it feel to be disappointed in others? To not collapse when there’s conflict as if I’m the one who’s automatically wrong? I can do this work to improve my experience of relationship and not because there’s something wrong with me.
Approaching improvement in this way can remove the burden of change being a necessary condition for acceptance, which of course tends to always put acceptance into the future. Sometimes it’s also helpful to point out that acceptance of reality must include accepting our efforts to improve. Wanting to have a more positive experience of life is a necessary—probably evolutionary—part of life itself. And improvement, which is oriented to the future, must include acceptance of immediate reality as the ground from which our efforts begin.
Contrast
The experience of contrast confounds our fantasy of a reality that we can know, control, and be at home in. If this is true and that is true, but they are not the same, then we will be unable to count on either as the whole story. If life is both wonderful and horrible, what position can we take? Our experiencing self is left somewhere in the middle, with no ground to stand on. As we have discussed in a variety of ways, our usual response to the anxiety this generates is to take sides and do our best to ignore, or at least discount, what does not support whatever we have identified with. But this open, anxious ground is exactly the experience we must train ourselves to continually return to. As long as we invest in the sense of being a separate, significant self, we will usually experience open awareness as some type of disturbance. Because avoiding this anxiety is avoiding open mind, it is important to discipline ourselves to look deeply into the actual experience of contrast. This means going beyond the content of what’s contrasted and into that meeting point where both are true and neither is true. What is our actual experience of holding both the wonder of life and the tragedy of life at the same time, with no resolution? Of wanting to be close to one’s partner and not wanting to be close at all, with no resolution? This open ground, initially difficult to rest in, is exactly what holds the full range of our experiencing, without bias and with appreciation. It’s contrast that forces us to acknowledge this experience, as most of us will not voluntarily look for this groundless anxiety. Because of this function, contrast seems to be a necessary quality in any path of waking up.
As one example of this view, in Tibetan Buddhism, our various states of mind are sometimes described as being like six realms, each having distinct qualities, through which we are continually moving and with which we are identifying. The nature of these realms ranges from god-like bliss to hell-like torture, but it is thought that the only realm that allows for freeing oneself from unnecessary suffering and confusion is the human state of contrasting experience. All of the other realms, however pleasant or painful, are uniform in their nature. There is no contrast, nothing to help free one from taking one’s experience as if it were the only reality. The human realm experience, however, is constantly alternating between pleasure and pain, birth and death, confusion and clarity. It is this never-ending contrast of experiencing that provides the necessary opening—the questioning of the drama of one’s experience—which, when investigated in a persistent and disciplined way, gradually trains one to rest continually in open mind. We find that it is only open mind, open awareness, that can hold the full range of our often contradictory and intense human experiencing.
Not Knowing and Living with Confidence
As we train ourselves to return, over and over, to this open energy, we find that it is more fundamental than any theory or description of reality. We find that it is more true to say that we don’t really know anything with certainty than to say that we do. Even science has placed uncertainty at the heart of its methodology and focuses on describing the activity of matter and energy, rather than making claims about the nature of reality. Especially in the arenas of therapy and spiritual path work, we tend to be most certain about what’s most trivial and least certain about what’s most important. We know where we live, what we usually like to eat, what language we speak. We don’t know who we are, what happens when we die, the meaning of life, how to have the best relationship or be the best parents possible. No one has ever been able to prove just what it means to live the best life possible or how to do so. Basically, we’re all just falling through space, making it up as we go. Frequently in my work, clients will claim that they are feeling confused or conflicted about some life circumstance. Maybe they’ll say, “I’ve just begun a new relationship, and I don’t know when I should begin introducing my new partner to my children.” That is actually what’s true: They don’t know, and there’s no way of having certainty about this important decision. But rather than accepting and experiencing this uncertainty, they generate a fantasy of struggle or confusion that keeps alive the hope that there is some correct answer. I may invite these clients to participate fully in what’s most true in their experience—that they don’t know the answer and perhaps they never will. Often there is relief in finding out that it’s not going to damage them to not have an answer, even to important questions.
As we become familiar with the disturbance associated with this basically open experiencing, we find that our anxiety is not an accurate signal of some imminent harm and that our confidence actually increases as we engage with each moment from the “ground” of not knowing. In our culture, confidence is usually based on a sense of knowing how to deal with a situation, feeling in control, having worked with similar problems, getting good feedback from others. However, unconditional confidence arises out of a willingness to not know why a situation has occurred, how to best handle it, or what the outcome will be—and to fully engage anyway, without requiring certain conditions to first be met.
The more we engage with our lives without requiring reassurance, the more we realize that this is already the case at all times. We can never have objective confirmation that we are making the right choice. We never get a do-over and so can never know if another choice might have been better. We will never know the final, long-term consequences of our choices, because there is never a point of final assessment—only an ongoing process of unfolding, with one situation evolving into the next without end. And we can never not act. Every second, we engage with our lives. Even when it looks like we’re doing nothing, our doing nothing is an engagement, with its own consequences. Realizing that we are always acting and that we will never have confirmation that we’re making the best choice, we do have the choice about our attitude of engagement. We can choose to act and live with a confidence that has no objective justification, or we can choose to act and live with hesitation and self-doubt—which, as it turns out, also has no objective justification. It’s actually a choice. As a completely practical issue, we might want to try both and see which we prefer—which one seems to support a more positive experiencing for ourselves and for others? We may find that, as we practice showing up without apology, a deeper confidence is cultivated—an attitude that arises out of not knowing but that manifests as a fully embodied presence. We know that we’re just winging it, that we will continually make mistakes, but we learn that this will be true regardless of whether we do so with confidence or with self-doubt. We learn that we really only have our own unique version of being human to offer to the world.
Authenticity
Like any important concept, authenticity has different meanings at different levels of understanding. When we first become aware of aspects of ourselves that we have historically disown
ed, we usually sense the potential for a greater authenticity. As we recover the ability to consciously participate in our previously prohibited feelings, we begin to feel more integrated. If we grow up needing to never be angry, we will feel more authentic as we allow ourselves to feel our rage, assert needs, have boundaries in relationships, and stop avoiding conflict. We begin to take ownership of a more complex sense of self. As we continue to recover disowned aspects of ourselves, we will almost certainly find deeper vulnerabilities, such as feelings of powerlessness, grief, fear of being wrong, and so on. As we are able to cultivate a conscious and kind experience of these difficult feelings, we will probably feel less internally conflicted and therefore less reactive and more able to engage with others with a greater sense of really being ourselves, of authenticity. Often, the experience of feeling better about ourselves and getting better feedback from others can then activate a genuine interest in further self-exploration.
As we evolve and mature ourselves, the sense of being divided into conflicting parts gradually dissolves. We may then begin to participate in all of our experiencing, however deep or superficial, and move beyond the project of finding our “true self.” We understand that authenticity refers not only to the content of our experience, but, even more importantly, to how we relate to this content. We may stop pretending to be divided, problematic people and accept our always-existing wholeness—which, of course, has to include everything, both positive and negative, sane and neurotic. Perhaps nothing is missing, nothing left unresolved in our past, no wounds to heal before we can be fully present. It’s true, though, that we’re messy humans with no access to some objective reality, so we continue to work with our conditioned experience—not because it’s wrong or inauthentic, but so that we might cause less harm to ourselves and to others and so that we may even be of some benefit. We realize that we are always fully and authentically ourselves; that it’s impossible to be otherwise. And so we commit to a more and more skillful and compassionate expression of who we already are.
Not Self-Acceptance, but an Accepting Self
Self-acceptance is a project of the divided self. It’s really like a dog chasing its tail, trying to catch itself. The only way we can maintain this drama is by pretending that the self to be accepted is somehow different from the self that is accepting. As discussed, this sense of being divided against oneself is probably an unavoidable developmental stage to be experienced and worked through, but it is probably helpful to not take it too seriously. And as long as we try to make ourselves into an object to be either accepted or rejected, better to accept it. Better to have a positive self-as-object than a negative self-as-object. This is the arena of most of the work we do in psychotherapy. We understand the historic origins of our negative sense of self, bring into awareness the underlying vulnerabilities that continue to be converted into negativity, reframe our understanding into more accurate adult ideas, learn to soothe ourselves when anxious, and learn to behave as dignified and considerate persons in order to get better feedback from the world. As we gradually cultivate a more positive sense of self, it, of course, becomes easier to accept that self.
However, until this deeper experience of pretending to be divided against ourselves is adequately dissolved, we will maintain what is a fundamentally paranoid drama. If the self to be accepted is essentially different from the I that tries to accept it, then the I will always be vulnerable to a self that has its own survival to worry about, not the I’s. This self might act out in primitive ways that are hurtful, and the I is powerless to really do anything about it. At the biological level, our immune systems are designed to identify and attack anything that is non-self. Maintaining the drama of being a divided self can be understood as analogous to an autoimmune disease. By relating to this self as if it were essentially different from the I who is trying to accept it, we guarantee a deeply conflicted experience. Even if this self is positive, it’s still alien and a potential threat. We could think of this “positive self-as-object” as like an autoimmune disease that’s in remission, waiting to be reactivated by some stress or life crisis.
The deeper work to be done has been discussed in a variety of ways. In this discussion, we can understand it as gradually giving up the project of self-acceptance and instead cultivating the experience of an accepting self. We practice an attitude of openhearted, embodied, alert engagement at all times, without regard to what may be arising in each moment. We have a “yes” in place before we even know what will come next. We soften our stance rather than brace for what may happen. We train our attention to relax, over and over, into expansive awareness, instead of centralizing it in a constant monitoring about what we think and feel. Our commitment to fully engage and work with our experience is unconditional, not dependent on whether it fits our preferred sense of self.
As we practice this experience of being an accepting self, we find ourselves naturally living with greater appreciation and confidence in each moment. As our participation in immediacy increases, we find that what we have called a self is not a thing to accept; rather, it is an ever-evolving process, always changing in unpredictable ways, to participate in but never to really know. Because every moment is fresh, accepting must be renewed in each moment. Accepting is seen to be a never-ending practice, never an accomplishment. As this practice dissolves the sense of being somehow divided against oneself, we may find—once again—that what is always present is awareness: awareness of I, awareness of self, awareness of other. Even though these experiences continue to appear to be distinct and separate, the pervasiveness of awareness becomes the more compelling reality, erasing any sense of essential difference. Self-acceptance has become a nonissue.
THE FRUITION: A GOOD STATE OF MIND, REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCE
As we experiment with these practices, think about these views, and try them out in our daily life, how can we tell if movement is happening or progress is being made? An early indication will be a lessening of complaint, struggle, self-doubt, defensiveness, and emotional reactivity. We are captured by our usual dramas less often, don’t take them quite so seriously, and recover from them faster. In a very straightforward way, as we begin to cultivate a good state of mind at all times, the factors that give rise to unnecessary negativity begin to be unsupportable and to fall away. A generalized sense of confidence may be noticed, with more frequent moments of clarity, embodied presence, and kindness to whatever may arise. We may find that we are more curious about and feel more of an empathic commonality with others. We will probably experience an increased alignment between what we believe to really be our highest priorities and our actual behavior, thinking, emotional processing, and awareness practices. We act more in accord with our intentions and with less inner struggle. We may find ourselves pausing at random moments with the sense of deep appreciation and gratitude, for no specific reason. A generalized sense of well-being and contentment may become a familiar presence. And we may find an increasing frequency of moments in which whatever is being experienced is arising in an environment of freedom and open awareness. It’s likely that these indicators will sometimes be more present, sometimes appear to be lost for awhile; but over time, we may see clear evidence that an evolution in our experiencing is taking place.
If in fact this is our experience, we will probably gain more confidence that taking on certain practices actually does make a difference, and we will probably find a more organic motivation arising. As we continue, we’re likely to go through several different types of understanding of this path that we’re increasingly committed to. At first, most of us will understandably try to create this good state of mind as an achievement. Our cultural training is to work hard, over time, and accomplish a goal that we can then enjoy. We gradually learn, though, that a good state of mind is a way of relating to each fresh moment, never knowing what we’ll do next, with no formula, confident that we’ll work with anything, including not experiencing a good state of mind. At this stage, we understand a good state of mind
as a practice, never an accomplishment; but it is a practice that can become reliable and resilient. At some point, we may discover that even the attitude of practice subtly generates a sense that our present moment should still be improved upon. With this understanding, we drop the sense of project as we realize that we’re already only living in each present moment, spontaneously engaged, making it all up—even the formula of a practice. This is when language becomes somewhat paradoxical: effortless effort, a stateless state. Our “practice” is now to return, over and over, to a conscious participation in what’s already always our immediate experiencing. There’s a very light touch, which is more about remembering to redirect our attention than trying to reach some better state of mind. An unconditional confidence develops: whether we remember to be consciously present or not, we’re still always present anyway. It’s simply a practical issue to work with if we want more conscious participation, not an issue of any special significance. It’s similar to the confidence most of have that we will be breathing whether or not we attend to it. If, for some reason, we want to improve our habitual style of breathing, we direct our attention to it, participate consciously in some practice or discipline, then return to other interests without monitoring or worrying about whether we will successfully breathe or not.