Totally Accepting

  During the meditation sitting tonight, I was using Chang Zhai Fashi's suggested method of directly contemplating painful sensations, particularly in my spine. And I found two things: the first is that when I embrace and even love the pain, this seems to be the most direct approach to accepting the pain. The second is that, I have to let go of all intellectual diversions to really enjoy it for what it is. The labelling of pain is what briefly distances me from its experience, and this in turn ends up bringing in more scattered thoughts. The analogy is something like: the more I can talk "about" lifting a heavy weight, the less inclined I will be to lift that weight. It's because the process of walking around something through labels ends up scattering energy that could be used to directly experience something with all awareness. But when I have divested myself of all labels, what I find is that the pain can be enjoyed, in the same way that a book can be read. There is a sense that I am no longer afraid of this experience, and thus it turns into a place of discovery for me.
   It makes me wonder, when does 'acceptance' fail? I think it fails when a person uses a concept to accept rather than directly immersing oneself in the whole  experience. I 'accept' or 'tolerate' can easily become a label in itself for something a person truly doesn't want to face. At the same time,  there is a hidden desire that comes from the idea of acceptance. I make a bargain with myself that if I accept this one thing, this will eventually lead me to enjoy life or even remove the obstacle. The problem with this ''acceptance' is that it really is a mask for non-acceptance, since I busy myself  trying to remove what feels difficult in order to reach a certain state of mind. A better understanding of acceptance might involve seeing that there is nothing that is an obstacle at all: taking the experience entirely as it is, which takes me beyond labelling altogether.
     Acceptance also fails when a person assumes it is emotionless. I sometimes think acceptance is a kind of neutral stance, as when we refer to a work as 'acceptable' (neither terribly good nor terribly bad). Yet, as my own experience in meditation suggests, acceptance requires a kind of heart which is determined to accept. This is because what  is sometimes considered a ''neutral state' of mind is actually often a screen to prevent painful situations from being faced. In order to overcome that screen, a person sometimes needs to do the opposite to what they are inclined, by assuming the position of enjoying discomfort. It is not difficult to do this, as long as one sees that all phenomena are of the same mind, and pain awakens people to their true mind. If everything were completely comfortable, there would be not that much motivation to practice or to go beyond a comfortable identity in daily life. For this reason, acceptance often requires a kind of desire to accept whatever situation arises, almost like an aspiration to accept.