WHAT IS THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING -- MINDFULLY?

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Shinjuku and Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.

Photo taken by the author.

As a lawyer I was trained to think logically and rationally. Part of ‘thinking like a lawyer’ is being able to draw appropriate conclusions and inferences from objective facts. Later, when I taught law for many years--I still do—I tried to instil in my students the importance of fact-finding, logic and reason.

Yet, after many setbacks and failures in my life, I am compelled to say this --- real, lasting happiness and peace of mind require the exercise of an altogether different type of mindset. Indeed, the logical and rational mind, and education itself, can be a real stumbling block on the path to satori (‘waking up’, ‘awakening’). The real problems in my life have never been solved by the application of logic and reason alone, and in some instances I am convinced that the problems were made worse by their application.

One real problem with applying logic and reason alone is that one is still working on the same level of the problem itself. As Albert Einstein pointed out, ‘No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.’ What is needed, at least at times, is something supra-rational-- not irrational, but supra-rational. The ‘key’ to solving many problems in our lives transcends ordinary reason and logic. Many advocate the use of intuition, but uninformed intuition can be a real stumbling block as well. What are the characteristics of the supra-rational mind? Please read on.

Now, most of you would have heard of the Zen kōan, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ The full version of the kōan goes something like this. The much-respected master of the major Kyoto temple of Kennin-ji was Mokurai (1854-1930) [pictured left]. He had a young protégé named Toyo who was only 12 years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit Mokurai’s room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen (personal guidance with a Zen master) in which they were given kōans to stop mind-wandering. Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

‘Wait a while,’ said Mokurai. ‘You are too young.’ However, Toyo insisted, so the teacher finally consented. So, in the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

‘You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,’ said Mokurai. ‘Now show me the sound of one hand.’ Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From his window he could hear the music of the geishas. ‘Ah, I have it!’ he proclaimed. The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas. ‘No, no,’ said Mokurai. ‘That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all.’

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. ‘What can the sound of one hand be?’ He happened to hear some water dripping. ‘I have it,’ imagined Toyo. So, when he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water. ‘What is that?’ asked Mokurai. ‘That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again.’ In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind, but the sound was rejected. He heard the cry of an owl. That also was refused.  The sound of one hand was not the locusts. And so it went on.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year Toyo pondered what the sound of one hand might be. At last Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. ‘I could collect no more,’ he explained later, ‘so I reached the soundless sound.’ Finally, Toyo had realized the sound of one hand clapping.

So, what is the sound of one hand clapping? If you say, ‘There can be no clapping with only one hand. It takes two hands to clap. Thus, there is no sound of one hand clapping,’ you are using your rational and logical mind. Yes, you are right in a sense, but you are ‘dead’ right as well … with the emphasis on that word ‘dead’. The purpose of kōans---if 'purpose' be the right word, which it probably isn’t---is to still the active, rational, intellectual, analytical mind. The mind then finds itself (note those words, ‘finds itself,’ for that is the way it happens) in an existential cul-de-sac of sorts where there is no way out but enlightenment. That is the only way we will ever be able to experience a direct, immediate and unmediated apprehension or realization of truth.

As I’ve said before on this blog, a kōan is not a method or technique. It is the complete absence of any method or technique. It is the absence of any meaning or purpose as those terms are ordinarily understood. It is seeing and experiencing things-as-they-really-are---without any filters, beliefs or conditioned thinking of any kind. It is waking up to what really is, and that can be an earth-shattering experience.

There is a ‘sound’ that is not even a ‘no-sound’. It is not merely the absence of sound, it is the active presence of stillness, quietness and tranquillity. You can ‘hear’ this ‘no-sound’ when the active, rational and logical mind is stilled. In such a state of heightened awareness there is no analysis, comparison, judgment or interpretation. The kōan has done its work. Remember, there is never a logical, rational answer to any kōan. However, a kōan can be solved, but never from the same level of consciousness that created the kōan in the first place.

When you know and ‘hear’ the sound of one hand clapping---mindfully---you have come to experience a veritable awakening. There is a peace that passes understanding, and a power that makes all things new. It lives and moves in the one who ‘hears’ not just with their ears but with their whole be-ing-ness … and also their whole no-thing-ness, that is, pure, unadulterated, unconditioned consciousness.

Yes, when we come to know the no-thing-ness underlying and interpenetrating all reality, we can truly say that we have experienced an awakening, for the latter is not a ‘thing-in-itself’. Indeed, it is a ‘no-thing’, that is, the complete absence of thought, conditioning, materialism and all other limitations of time and space. It is living with choiceless, unadorned awareness.

I am reminded of what Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, and founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, had to say about mindfulness. He said, ‘Mindfulness is about falling awake rather than asleep.’ Falling awake. Yes, and also staying awake. That is mindfulness. And that is enlightenment. It is also the ‘sound of one hand clapping’ ... mindfully.

Calligraphy: Ensō by Mokurai. The ensō or Zen circle symbolises absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe and mu (the void, no-thing-ness). 

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EVERYTHING IS BEST

In memory of

I had a uncle who was a very wise man. I called him Uncle Dick, because he was my uncle and he was called … Dick. 

Uncle Dick was a truck driver, and I know that he had limited formal education, but he was very wise. You know, most of the so-called learned people I’ve met in my life---and I’ve spent much of my life working with academics and in academia---are little more than educated idiots. I guess I have to include myself in that category. Back to my Uncle Dick. He was wise. He used to say to me, ‘Jonesy, you never go [that is, die] before your time.’ He would say that whenever someone died or whenever the subject of death was being discussed. ‘You never go before your time,’ he would say.

It took me years to understand what my uncle meant until one day a priest friend of mine told me that his mother used to say, ‘Whatever is, is best.’ I had heard that statement before, and even then I was aware of a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox [pictured left] entitled ‘Whatever Is—Is Best’ …

Sometimes by the heart's unrest,

And to grow means often to suffer --

But whatever is -- is best.

There is a Zen kōan called ‘Everything is best’, and it goes like this. When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. ‘Give me the best piece of meat you have,’ said the customer. ‘Everything in my shop is the best,’ replied the butcher. ‘You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.’ At these words Banzan became enlightened.

Everything is best, not necessarily because whatever is, is good, but because whatever is, is what is. Our problems only happen when we resist whatever is, when we fight against whatever is. If we can accept what is---as being our present reality---the problems caused by non-resistance vanish. Now, that doesn’t mean we should not seek to change things for the better. We must fight against injustice, cruelty, oppression and discrimination. However, when it comes to that which truly cannot be changed, acceptance is the way to go. Whatever we resist, persists. Listen to these wonderful words from the ‘Big Book’ of Alcoholics Anonymous:

And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation---some fact of my life---unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. 

These days, I have a bit of a problem with those words 'exactly the way it is supposed to be'. I would prefer to say, 'exactly the way it is'. Be that as it may, the point being made about the need for acceptance and non-resistance is a very valid one.

Now, back to my uncle, who said, ‘You never go before your time.’ Well, whenever a person goes---that is, dies---that is their time to go. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don't believe in predestination or anything like that. I am simply saying that a person cannot die earlier than when they actually do die. Some people live a long life while others die young. There is a certain injustice in that at times, but the point is that none of those people died before their time to die. Some may retort, ‘But, surely when someone is murdered, they die before their time?’ Really? Whenever you die is the time that you die. You cannot die before you die. The difficulty some have with accepting the truth of this statement shows the extent of our non-resistance to this self-evident truth.

Whatever is, is best. Everything in my shop is the best. You never die before your time.

Life is what it is. Accept it and move on. Death is what it is. Accept it and move on.

LIFE IS VERY REAL---ARE YOU?

‘Reality is a question of realizing how real the world is already.’ So wrote the Beat writer Allen Ginsberg [pictured left].

Life is very real. We have our little philosophies and religions and we think we have life explained and understandable, then, wham, reality hits us right in the face with, say, a terminal illness or a death of a close loved one. Here’s a Zen kōan, entitled ‘Nothing Exists’, which illustrates this point.

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shōkoku. Desiring to show his attainment, the young student said: ‘The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.’

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry. ‘If nothing exists,’ said Dokuon, ‘where did this anger come from?’

Good question. ‘If nothing exists, where did this anger come from?’

Now, this young student appears not to have understood the Buddhist notion of non-existence. Let’s get this straight. Buddhism does not teach that nothing exists, that is, that there is no existence at all. Think about it. If nothing existed, there would be no one around to make the statement, ‘Nothing exists.’ The statement could not be said at all---but it can be said. (It's a case of 'I philosophize, therefore I am.') The Buddhist notion of non-existence ('emptiness') is this---nothing (that is, no thing) has any intrinsic (that is, separate and independent) existence in and of itself. Everything---that is, every thing---is inconstant, identity-less and conditioned. A thing arises as a result of one or more causes or circumstances and when those causes or circumstances disappear so does the thing. Each thing is a cause of at least one other thing as well as being the effect of some other thing, so a thing is explainable only by reference to one or more other things which themselves are explainable only by reference to one or more other things, and on it goes. For example, a table is made out of wood, metal or other component parts, and it is made by someone. It is not independent of the things that come together to make it up, nor the person who puts those pieces together to form the table. Nothing has any permanent, separate existence in and of itself. This is at least part of what a Buddhist means when he or she refers to things being ‘empty’---they have no separate, independent or permanent existence. Anyway, I digress.

The point is this. The young student thought he would impress Dokuon with his knowledge and wisdom. You see, he thought he had life all figured out. Ha! How wrong he was! He was in for a rude shock. That might have been a damn good thing, for perhaps an experience of instant enlightenment came upon him. Being hit with the Zen master's keisaku (wooden stick) can sometimes help to bring that abut. Yes, perhaps he came to see things-as-they-really-are---for the very first time. Buddhism is very Aristotelian (as opposed to Platonic). At the risk of over-simplification, the essence of Buddhism is – what you see is what you get. That is all there is, but it is more than enough! Things are what they are. Life is not fair. Bad things happen to good people all the time. The innocent suffer. Things just cannot be 'squared up' in the life-to-come. For starters, there is no reliable evidence that there is any life-to-come. We can fairly safely say that this life here is all that there is---but it's more than enough. Make the most of it. I like the late Jackie Gleason's philosophy of life: ‘Just play the melody, live, love, and lose gracefully.’

Japanese formal garden. (Photo taken by the author.)

All too often we utter glib remarks to others who are going through pain or other difficulty or who have suffered bereavement or some other loss---remarks such as, ‘All will be well’, ‘God will look after you’, and ‘Everything happens for a reason’. As I say, we have our little philosophies and religions but when the proverbial shit hits the fan all too often we find that our theories and belief-systems explain very little at all. Part of growing up is to drop our illusions and wake up. Part of waking up is to drop our illusions and grow up. I have found both statements to be true.

When I was at high school I had a French teacher who would often say to us, Je suis un réaliste, or just simply Je suis réaliste (‘I am a realist’). It was clear that he did not believe in God or religion. He was an effective teacher---in terms of producing consistently good academic results in his students over many decades---but he was a bit of a sadist, largely teaching by fear, humiliation and ordeal. Many teachers of that era were sadists. It was considered par for the course. For the most part, things are different now. Now, this was a church school, and once a year the then current moderator of the Presbyterian Church would come to the school and give an address to the students at assembly. One particular year, the moderator was very elderly. Of course, they all appeared elderly to us kids, but this one much more so. This man of the cloth spoke eloquently of a loving God, Jesus, goodness and the life to come. We had a French class shortly after assembly, and I remember our French teacher saying to us, more than once, in the class, Imaginez, ayant toutes ses illusions à cet âge! (‘Imagine, having all his illusions at that age!’). 

That incident occurred some 45 years ago yet I remember it as if it was yesterday. In the ensuing years I would lose all of my illusions—and I don’t regret that at all. Je suis un réaliste ainsi.

‘Reality is a question of realizing how real the world is already.’

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SO YOU WANT TO MEDITATE, DO YOU?

‘I want to learn how to meditate.’

I hear those words quite often. My reply to such enquirers meets either with annoyance or just confusion or consternation. ‘You cannot learn how to meditate. When you ask “how,” you are seeking a method or technique. Methods and techniques are mechanical. They are the product of a conditioned mind. Meditation is all about the non-mechanical and the unconditioned--or rather deconditioned—mind.’

As I say, this reply is not what enquirers want to hear … but I say it anyway. Why? Because it’s the truth. Perhaps I can best explain what meditation truly is by giving you some pearls of wisdom from two great Japanese Zen masters of yesteryear, namely, Hakuin [pictured right] and Ikkyū [pictured below left].

First, Hakuin. 

Now, you have probably heard of the famous Zen kōan, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping’? Well, Hakuin is said to have been the creator of that particular kōan. He was also the originator of the study of kōans as a means of attaining enlightenment. Actually, the 'sound of one hand clapping' kōan, as originally formulated by Hakuin, went like this: ‘What is the sound [or voice] of one hand?’ Egad, I hear you say. That is silly. Indeed. Indeed.

Are you looking for some ‘answer’ to the kōan ... or some other kōan? Some 'right' answer? Don’t bother. Kōans are not riddles. They have no ‘answer,’ and definitely no 'right' answer, as such for life has no answer. Life just is. So is a kōan. Have you heard this one? 'Two sisters are crossing the street, which one is the older sister?' Get the point? I hope so.

The purpose of kōans---if 'purpose' be the right word, which it probably isn’t---is to still the active, rational, intellectual, analytical mind. The mind then finds itself (note those words, ‘finds itself,’ for that is the way it happens) in an existential cul-de-sac of sorts where there is no way out but enlightenment. That is the only way we will ever be able to experience a direct, immediate and unmediated apprehension or realization of truth. Now, this is terribly important. A kōan is not a method or technique. It is the complete absence of any method or technique. It is the absence of any meaning or purpose as those terms are ordinarily understood. It is … seeing and experiencing things-as-they-really-are … without any filters, beliefs or conditioned thinking of any kind. It is waking up to what really is ... and that can be an earth-shattering experience.

That was not the wisdom from Hakuin that I actually wanted to share with you today, not that what I just said is unimportant, for it is of ultimate importance. This is the particular gem of wisdom from Hakuin that I wanted to share with you:

What is true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single kōan.

That, my friends, is meditation. It is not repeating over and over again some word or phrase. It is not staring for hours at a candle or a statue of the Buddha. Well, I will correct that. It is ... and it isn’t. Let me explain. Meditation is being attentive, fully attentive, to whatever you are doing or whatever is happening inside you or around you. Now, that may be a candle burning, or a repetitive word or phrase, but you should never restrict your meditative practice to just that sort of thing. Why? Because it soon becomes mechanical, and that is not a good thing. True meditation is washing the dishes, eating your dinner, driving the car, writing a letter or an email, having sex, and listening to your partner speak to you. It is doing all those things---and anything else for that matter---with focus, clarity, awareness, intentionality, deliberateness, and attention. Meditation is being aware … and being fully aware that you are aware. In short, meditation is living---really living---with your eyes open.

Now we come to Zen master Ikkyū.

One day a man of the people said to Ikkyū, ‘Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?’ Ikkyū immediately took his brush and wrote the word ‘Attention.’ ‘Is that all?’ asked the man. ‘Will you not add something more?’ Ikkyū then wrote twice: ‘Attention. Attention.’ ‘Well,’ remarked the man rather irritably, ‘I really don’t see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written.’ Then Ikkyū wrote three times: ‘Attention. Attention. Attention.’ Half-angered, the man demanded: ‘What does that word “attention” mean anyway?’ Ikkyū gently answered: ‘Attention means attention.’

That, dear friends, is meditation. Attention. Attention. Attention.

And you thought you needed a method or technique.

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MINDFULNESS IS TASTING THE STRAWBERRY---EVEN IN THE JAWS OF DEATH

Seize the moment! How often we hear those words, yet how rarely do we heed them.

Here’s a Zen kōan that’s all about the importance of seizing the moment. It’s said to be a parable told by the Buddha:

A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, the man caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

This is a very powerful story. Here’s this man, facing imminent and certain death---and death in a most unpleasant manner---and what does he do? He plucks and eats a strawberry. And how sweet that strawberry tasted!

Now, this is a parable. It has an ‘inner’ meaning, so to speak. The strawberry represents the present moment which before we know it becomes the past. The tiger above the man is birth, and the tiger below is the man’s imminent death—and our death as well. And what of the mice some of which are black and the others white? As I see it, they represent our days on this planet. Some days are good (‘white’) while others are, well, terrible (‘black’). Remember the words of Omar Khayyám [pictured below]? ‘Tis all a Chequer-board of nights and days.' Black or white, the mice symbolise the passage of our days while we are here on earth. Sooner or later the mice will gnaw through the vine of our life's breath and then ... death. Yes, life is damn short, even if many of us are living longer than in years past. Here are some more lines from Omar Khayyám:

Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain — This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

 

Mindfulness is living with awareness, and being fully and consciously present, from one moment to the next. Life is all the more precious by reason of the fact that we will ultimately lose it. ‘Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it — every, every minute?’, asks the dead Emily in Thornton Wilder’s wonderful play Our Town. Sadly, most of us don’t. Most of us live mindlessly. We don’t really live. We don’t even exist---we subsist. In the words of Thoreau, we ‘lead lives of quiet desperation,’ and go the grave not having ever known the joy of living with choiceless awareness of the present moment.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not advocating hedonism. Not at all. I am simply asserting that living mindfully is better than the alternative. Facing certain and imminent death our hero in the parable continues to live mindfully. He looks. He observes. He tastes. In similar circumstances I suspect that most of us would not even see the strawberry, and if we did few of us would have any interest in eating it. ‘How can I think of eating at a time like this?’, I hear myself saying.

Seize the moment ... before it’s too late.

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NOTHING’S REAL--EXCEPT REALITY ITSELF

Life, as Allen Ginsberg so powerfully put it, is ‘a question/ of realizing how real/ the world is already.' 

No matter what you believe, or don’t believe, it’s how well you live your life, and how well you cope ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,’ that determines the true measure of your success in life and the quality of your life experience. You may pride yourself on having what you think is a logical, rational philosophy of life but if it doesn’t help you deal with the problems of everyday life, it’s next to useless. If a religious or philosophical life stance is to be of any use, it must help to explain, and help you and others cope with, the ‘broken shoelaces’ as well as the bigger tragedies of everyday life. 

There’s a Zen kōan entitled ‘Nothing exists.’ I think it powerfully illustrates the point I’m trying to make.

A young student of Zen visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku, a famous Rinzai rōshi who became abbot of Shōkoku-ji. Desiring to show his attainment, the student said: ‘The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.’

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked the student with his bamboo pipe. This made the student quite angry. ‘If nothing exists,’ inquired Dokuon, ‘where did this anger come from?’

A Christian may affirm, ‘God is light and love, and in Him there is no darkness at all’ (cf 1 Jn 1:5), and exclaim, ‘Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me’ (cf Mt 19:14; Lk 18:16), but try saying that to parents who have just lost their son or daughter to some childhood cancer after many years of pain and suffering. Now how helpful is that? Does it relieve their suffering? Does it have explanatory power? 

And the militant atheist who believes in no-god, and who has no time for those who pray to an 'imaginary friend,' may pride themself on the fact that they have, as they see it, repudiated all superstition and supernaturalism, having adopted a rational life stance, but unless they have real insight into their own behaviour and mind they know very little indeed.

Listen to these insightful words from the American spiritual leader and author Vernon Howard whose books and talks have helped me greatly over the years:

To be right, just be real. Reality is everything. Now you think about that. What is actual, what is true, what is real is right. Trueness is always right.

In nature, you can see rightness, because nature is what it is. A rose is real, a rose is right. No question about that. No rose ever goes to a psychiatrist.

In short, there is no substitute for what is. Life, reality, actuality, rightness, truth---those words refer to the same thing. If we align ourselves with what is, and don't resist or fight against it, and always speak the truth to others as well as to ourselves, we will know peace ... but not otherwise.

The truly spiritual (and I don't mean religious) person has no creed or article of faith at all, and their only liturgy is a day-to-day, moment-to-moment reverence for and acceptance of the beauty and the ugliness of life as it unfolds unceasingly yet wondrously. Their only ‘god’---if they choose to use that word---is a sincere desire to learn, know and understand as opposed to simply believe or not believe. The just-believer---as well as the mere non-believer---never knows or understands. Seek to learn. Seek to know. Seek to understand.

In the words of another master, ‘And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (Jn 8:32).

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Everything is best. Yes, every thing. Now, that’s a strange spiritual truth if ever there was one. Yet, I have found it to be so.

There’s a Zen kōan that goes like this. When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. ‘Give me the best piece of meat you have,’ said the customer. ‘Everything in my shop is the best,’ replied the butcher. ‘You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.’ At these words Banzan became enlightened---that is, he 'woke up' and saw things as they really are ... for the very first time.

The great spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti, pictured, had this to say about acceptance. 'In the acknowledgement of what is, there is the cessation of all conflict.' It took me years to understand what he was saying. I mean, years. Actually, decades. Yes, decades---and decades of unnecessary suffering, both to myself and others. Yes, whatever is, is best. Why is that so? It’s simple (but not easy). Because whatever is, is what is. And what is is reality, is now. When we resist what is, we suffer---every time. Yes, every goddam time. Resistance is non-acceptance. Resistance is suffering ... and conflict (be it physical, psychological, or whatever). And resistance is living in the past … or in the future. It is anything and everything other than living fully in the present.

Of course, acceptance is never easy---if only we could buy it at a supermarket---but we make the task of acceptance so much harder than we need to. Acceptance is letting go---that is, letting go of all resistance, especially all opinions that stand in the way of a full acceptance of what is. However, before we can let go we must first let be. That's right, we must let be whatever is our present reality. That's not fatalism. Not at all. Before we can change what can be changed we must first ... let be. 

Acceptance is surrender---to what is. And acceptance is faith. Now, by faith I do not mean creedal belief but living with hope, courage and confidence despite appearances to the contrary. Faith is embracing what is, even though we might have hoped for something altogether different. 

And what is hope? Well, hope is not the same thing as having expectations. Indeed, we must get rid of all expectations if we don't want to be constantly disappointed in life. No, hope is a certain mindset that knows---yes, knows---that whatever is, is best. It is a state of mind that is prepared to accept whatever be the outcome in any given fact-situation of life.

‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’