Awareness & Acceptance Are The Same! — Day 180

Today is about noticing that awareness & acceptance are two sides of the same coin.

Notice that simply becoming aware of something necessarily involves some degree of accepting it. Especially when it's something that you'd rather not deal with, like your ample store of suffering. Most of the time, especially before we begin to practice, we habitually and unconsciously avoid things we don't like – we have many strategies to distract ourselves – with no awareness or acceptance possible in that case.

And notice that when you're engaged in accepting something unpleasant, even if you feel like you're failing to do so and are only reacting, your awareness of the situation itself is already a huge step forward from not even looking at the problem. Being able to look at the issue is already an act of acceptance.

Awareness involves acceptance, and acceptance involves awareness. When we talk about and practice them separately, it's simply to build some focus and understanding about these two sides of the same coin. As your practice matures, you'll feel them more as one unified perspective from which you live your life.

PRACTICE

Notice the quality of acceptance in your awareness practice.

Notice the quality of awareness in your acceptance practice.