Hyper-Yang & Acceptance

Every human day requires the practice of acceptance, but instead of acceptance, most people employ fixes. We have every kind of bandaid, we strive for any kind of plan to ameliorate any kind of discomfort. 

Acceptance sounds so simple, but it is the work of the eons. We are part of an evolutionary process in which nature whittles form and function into matter. What’s she doing, what is her plan? We don’t know yet. But we can certainly see that a lot has been accomplished because look how much there is to love and nourish us in this world of our human and nonhuman relations. 

Not every child is born capable of adequate adaption to the conditions of this world. This is so hard to accept. I just passed a scene in which a hawk was being chased and attacked by 3 or 4 blue jays, and it appeared to have something in its talons. Perhaps it robbed the jays’ nest or grabbed one of the bird’s mates. I don’t know. I do know that jays themselves are nest robbers, and that we humans certainly do this in our own ways.

Terrible vulnerability played out in this scene, and many will want to judge the moral stance of the players. Where does accepting come into this? To accept this, we have to accept our own vulnerability, our own aggression and perhaps some very overwhelming emotions that come along with it, like terror, anger, dread and grief. 

Why would one want to do this anyway? When one passes through the door of acceptance one is reunited with truth. The writing’s been on the wall all the time, the story of our vulnerability and the inevitability of weakness, decline and death. The difficult elements of fallibility, imperfection, ignorance, miscalculation, ineptness, the state of being mismatched to a situation in which we would prefer to be the piece that makes all the parts work together perfectly. The number of iatrogenic deaths is a constant reminder of the futility of our hyper yang fantasies. Thy hyper yang world, in denial of our limitations, resents us for not being perfectly comforting, perfectly providing, for not quelling all fears, discomforts and inconveniences. 

Everyone fails. Everyone fails in some way to conform to the model of the hero who becomes our hope for lasting well-being. When we walk through the door of acceptance we can be with ourselves in honesty and be with each other without fear, with nothing to hide, surrendering to a process much greater than ourselves. 

But we are not totally helpless. Wisdom sneaks in, and guides compassionate action, action which often, instead of quelling the fears that keep us stuck running in neurotic circles, inducts us once again into the actual growth that is only and must be accompanied by considerable discomfort. This is the wisdom that inducts us into LIFE and our part in a sublime and infinite process of divine expression. 

In meditation I can imagine spending time allowing myself to become aware of what limitations I am naively denying in hopes of pleasing the complex with the intention of best orienting myself to my true resources. This is rehabilitating the yang through the power of yin. That is the power of acceptance.