I’ve been thinking about self-acceptance recently. I’m sure many of you can relate.
We’re pretty hard on ourselves as a culture. The Marlboro man epitomized the solo persona the country admired - strong, independent, self-reliant. I don’t think the Marlboro man had much of an emotional life which is probably why he was a chain smoker. Probably not much in touch with his feminine side either. Vestiges of that image still linger to a greater or lesser degree as a powerful archetype in the American personality.
We often encounter our unwillingness to accept ourselves when we feel inadequate or criticized or shown up in some way. Or when we’ve blundered or suddenly come face-to-face with some unseen and unseemly part of ourselves. And it can be a pretty painful process if we ourselves pile on the criticisms and join forces against ourselves in what we perceive to be a well-deserved self-bashing.
It is my fervent hope that by this time, we’ve all begun to recognize the signs and to marshall our inner resources to practice loving-kindness and compassion towards ourselves.
But I’ve also begun to wonder if we can’t approach this at a more elemental level working up and out as well as down and in. By that, I’m referring to our basic building block of mindfulness - awareness of breath. And this also refers to any focus of body awareness we choose such as the sensations in the hands or feet or seat. Or the sound scape.
When we practice breath awareness - and I’ll use that as my example, we pay attention to the breath as it arises and falls in each passing moment. The instruction is to allow the breath to be just as it is - without trying to make it into anything else, without judging it as being less than any other breath. This is the breath the body called for. This is the breath the body is capable of. And the question for us as meditators is this: can we be with it? Can we accept this breath as it is? And this breath as it is? The ragged as well as the smooth? The shallow breath as well as the full breath?
And even, the breath that feels inadequate as well as the breath that fully satisfies?
In this simple practice, we can begin the process of accepting - ourselves and reality - just as it is in this moment. Are we anxious and breathing rapidly and shallowly? Can we be with that? Are the wildfires making our air smoky? Can we be with that?
Can we accept our breath - just as it is? Our bodies just as they are? Our world just as it is?
It doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t attempt to improve any of it. But first we have to start where we are.
I wonder what the Marboro man would make of that.