The Practice of saying yes
In the Tibetan Buddhist teaching, there is the practice of saying yes. Its strategy is that by saying yes “we meet our edge and soften”, as the Tibetan Masters say. By saying yes to whatever is coming up and manifesting from within, we start feeling the edge of our feelings, the edge of judgment, fear, or anger. Just meeting it with presence, soften it because we recognize the nature of the manifestation. It is just a feeling, a thought, a sensation. With this understanding, we realize we are otherness from all that.
By saying yes, we’re directly contacting the experience that’s right here and we let that experience be. It is not a practice of doing, always familiar to us because of our speedy society. It is instead a practice of undoing resistance. This belongs to Mindfulness: the practice of noticing and letting be
The Practice of saying yes. What does that mean?
The practice of saying yes does not mean we need to like something. It is an honest acknowledgment of how it is right now and letting it be as it is. It is not a practice of fading reality or finding refuge in some known territory, often based on unhealthy habits and old patterns.
You are not saying yes to some outside person or situation. You are not saying yes to abuse or violence or unpleasantness. It doesn’t mean you are being passive.
You are saying yes to the despair you feel about something; to the fear you feel about something else; to the anger. You are saying yes to acknowledge how you feel and when you say yes to the moment, you can act in the next moment with much more intelligence, clarity, and kindness.
So it is not passive in any way. It is the practice of Radical Acceptance as defined by Tara Brach, whose teaching inspired this post.
So much to learn within this culture lacking of accountability, where we cannot accept the consequences of our choices, actions, or behaviors; where diversity is just praised and is creating a victimhood mentality and even more inequalities.
Saying yes became my practice.
Sasy