May 22, 2025
Principle 5. Acceptance. Third Week.
If day and night, summer and winter are well with you, you have surpassed the contradictions.
Last time: Two Wheels One Axle
This time: Hopes and Dreams, also What do we Mean by Contradiction?
To Do List
- Applying the principle to my current situation.
-Play the game of Name It!
Thinking about this principle I and the present moment I ask myself a simple question: am I facing difficulties where a profound acceptance of current realities would be a help to advancing.
Thinking about this I realized that, when we don’t accept the realities of the moment which we are living through, we have unrealistic expectations, or false hopes. That line of thought put me in mind of the guided experience of False Hopes. In that experience we are told:
“Without hopes and dreams, we cannot live. But once we know that certain hopes are false, we can’t hold on to them forever, because sooner or later they’ll end in crisis and failure. If you can search deep within yourself and find the hopes you realize will never come true, and if you make the effort to abandon these hopes here forever, you will gain a greater sense of reality.
Acceptance of reality is sometimes difficult but also powerful medicine.
But in the same experience we are warned it needs to be rightly applied:
“So let’s return to our task. Seek out among your fondest hopes and dreams those you sense will never come true. But don’t be confused, for there are many things that do seem possible! Do not focus on these—choose only those hopes and dreams that will never be realized. Go ahead now, search out your false hopes. Be completely honest with yourself, even if it’s a bit painful.
Over the last two weeks we considered the principle in general terms, and in light of the past. We also looked for cultural references related to the idea of acceptance, and asked others about how they understood the principle.
Behind this effort, or perhaps more accurately “copresent” with it, we are always trying to amplify our vision of how we can turn the principles into a dynamic and permanent meditation. That is to say, into a practice applicable at every moment of our lives. In that way we go on shaping a style of, or way of, engaging with life.
This Week’s Game
With your understanding of the general aspects of the principle in mind try to come up with a new version of the principle, or some aspect of the principle. Then give that new formulation a name that synthesizes it or captures its essence.
It seems useful to recall that this principle is named Acceptance. That is no doubt an important clue as to as to its application.
I sometimes think of this as The Principle of Centring, and sometimes as The Principle of Keeping Your Footing, or You’ve got to roll with the punches. At times as “Abandoning the cart”.
What’s your version of the principle? What will you name it?
General Considerations and Personal Reflections:
Here are some personal reflections. I offer them in the spirit of dialogue and exchange, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, this principle.
I found myself wondering about the phrases “Day and Night” and “Summer and Winter”. How literal are they meant to be? How metaphorical? A metaphor for what? For all opposites? How are they supposed to be “well” or if you prefer “fine”, “okay”, or “alright”? What does it mean for them to be well anyway?
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In a previous meeting an interesting question was raised: "when it says that if these things are well with me, I will have surpassed the contradictions — what are these contradictions I will have surpassed?" And of course that leads to an even more fundamental question:
what is a contradiction?
We often we call all internal discomforts or difficulties contradiction, but Silo uses it in a much more specific way. He told us that not all suffering was the result of contradiction. In chapter 13 of the Inner Look, he wrote: “Learn to distinguish a difficulty, a problem, an obstacle, from a contradiction. While those may move you or spur you on, contradiction traps you in a closed circle with no way out.”
I understand that contradiction traps me because it is an internal disagreement — me being at war with myself — and so I am left stuck between choices or possibilities. Finding a way out of my state of contradiction, a way to be in agreement with myself seems the most pressing task.
The book, The Inner Look, is the first part of a trilogy published under the title, Humanize the Earth. The second book of that trilogy is The Internal Landscape. Here are a few thoughts about contradiction and coherence from that text.
Chapter IX. Contradiction and Unity
“1. Contradiction inverts life. The inversion of the growing stream of life is experienced as suffering. Thus, suffering is the signal that warns us of the need to change the direction of the opposing forces.
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12. I believe you will know how to distinguish a difficulty, which is welcome for you can leap over it, from a contradiction, that lonely labyrinth that has no exit.
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20. You must be very clear about this: You are not at war with yourself. Rather, you must begin treating yourself like an old friend with whom you must now reconcile, for ignorance and life itself have driven you apart.
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25. If you want to build a new life, free of contradictions, a life that increasingly overcomes suffering, you must be aware of two false arguments. The first holds that “I need to solve my personal problems before I can undertake any constructive action in the world.” The second leads you to declare “I am committed to the world!” while forgetting yourself completely.
26. You may agree with me or not, but in any case, I will affirm that this is the only way forward: If you want to grow, you will help those around you to grow.
Remember:
“If you are indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, none of the help that you ask for will find justification.
If you are not indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, in order to help them you must bring your thoughts, feelings, and actions into agreement.”
Silo_ The Path
Worth Repeating:
“…if you look back in history, you will see the human being bearing
the face of suffering. Remember, even as you gaze at that suffering face, that it is necessary to move forward, and it is necessary to learn to laugh, and it is necessary to learn to love”.
Silo_ The Healing of Suffering
Coming up:
Next week we’ll focus on how the principle might apply to the future, and to the broader world beyond our immediate environment. We’ll also play a round of Explain it!
Note:
Marie-Claire has offered to host our next meeting. These notes have been posted on Facebook and sent to our email list, and, on my website
