Why Zen? Acceptance
By derek_a
@derek_a (10874)
May 12, 2007 9:29am CST
When I look at acceptance I can see that without acceptance nothing can ever be transcended. Just as if you don't physically accept an object, you don't get to handle it, if you don't accept an issue, (usually an issue you don't like), you don't get to mentally handle that either.
I see a parallel with Zen acceptance to the Christian act of forgiveness. Forgiveness and acceptance is not really an act, but more of a way of being. Through acceptance, one gets to observe (or witness) what is going on in one's experience. If it is unpleasant, there is bound to be resistance and possibly a search for escape.
This is where acceptance needs to be extended. In Zen meditation I focus on what's so. If it is resistance and an attempt to not-accept by "turning away" I accept that too. I am therefore in the state of being of accepting my resistances, and by such acceptance I transcend the resistances and am back to observing the unpleasant experience without the previous resistance. Then by acceptance once again, I transcend the unpleasant experience so that it becomes neutralised. My feelings are no longer "hooked" by the unpleasantness.
What I have demonstrated here is an unpleasant experience that has two "layers". The experience itself and the resistance to it. However, many unpleasant experiences due to many resistances in the past, become multi-layered, so there is a lot to transcend. This may sound bad, but really it isn't. It can be an extremely liberating experience to transcend our karma in this way, very fascinating and profound.
I have written articles on acceptance on my website for anybody who is interested. http://ayrehypnotherapy.com/powerofacceptance
1 response
@add_im (2712)
• Philippines
13 May 07
These concepts range from the application of eastern Zen 'acceptance' to a value-based approach, asking clients, "What do you really want your life to stand for?" and from a transcendent sense of self to the therapeutic application of Hegel's dialectic. The D in dialectic behavior therapy (DBT) is based on Hegel's philosophic paradigm. The dialectic has foundations in Socrate's and Plato's ideas of transcending the opposition and sublimating the conflict between thesis and antithesis via questioning to develop a synthesis, an emergence of an ever-evolving greater set of truths and for the client an improved life. :-)
1 person likes this
@derek_a (10874)
•
13 May 07
Thank you for an interesting posting.
Thinking, philosopy, concepts, ideas have brought human-beings a long way, but now maybe "I think to much!":-)
I have always thought many of these philosophies/therapies are "over-philosophied" and have tended to look at them with interest, but rarely use them, but maybe scraps from them, depending on the client. The more in a nut-shell things can be put, the easier it is to understand.
For instance, there is a story by a Zen master who kept pouring the tea into a "students" cup until it overflowed informing him that this represented his mind, to demonstrate this point.
I see Zen as a "way" and not a therapy or philosophy but can be, for the sake of analysis, termed as such. So Zen as a "therapy" aims towards emptiness or space and whilst "healing" can take place, it's not the aim for we are "already healed", but live in the illusion that we are not!
So Zen to me is... When all the complex realisations have come and gone through awareness and have fallen away. Even paradox eventually disappears. But words as so inadequate as they can only deal in concepts. If one can make a distinction between concept and experience and focus on the experience whilst allowing the concept to be, suddenly there is vision.... Maybe! There is always a maybe:-)
