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Inner Nonviolence and Complete Acceptance

Notes from Making a Vow of Inner Nonviolence and Complete Acceptance - The Zen Studies Podcast

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Much more transformative than our typical approaches to change is making a vow of complete, unconditional, inner nonviolence and then working toward complete acceptance and integration.

Trying to Change Negative Aspects of Self Through Violent Means

We all have negative aspects of ourselves we would like to fix, disown, or even expunge completely from our being.

Some things change easily with practice. … other aspects of ourselves are resistant to change. These aspects are much more deeply rooted in our karma – all the causes and conditions that have led to our current state of body and mind, including our own past choices.

My fondness for productive thinking has felt like a terrible impediment to my Zen practice over much of the past 30 years.

it’s the nature of karma that what starts as a benign or even helpful tendency can develop into an entrenched habit or even a compulsion over the years.

Only another practitioner of a contemplative spiritual tradition will be able to understand the anguish my busy mind caused me. I felt like I was a Zen fraud.

I struggled to subdue my busy mind in all the violent ways I described earlier – sheer force of will, repeated vows I continually broke, unending self-analysis and self-recrimination, seeking the advice of others, trying to convince myself that thinking was a tragic waste of time, all of it.

The Futility of Violent Means

Regardless of the severity of the violence, it causes damage.

To give context to our typical approaches to change, think of a negative aspect of self you are trying to change as a inner child.

When we employ harsh or antagonistic means to change part of ourselves, it doesn’t matter if, deep down, we are motivated in part by a sincere desire to do good … Part of us knows we are also motivated by judgement, frustration, shame, revulsion, or impatience, and reacts accordingly.

When we act based on rejection, whether our action is turned inwards or outwards, we break the first Buddhist precept, “do not kill.”

We may think we are justified in this judgment, but isn’t that the excuse for all kinds of violence?

Change Through Complete Acceptance and Integration

It isn’t wrong to want change. The essence of practice is that we can learn to make choices that lead to less suffering and to greater wisdom and compassion.

Much more transformative than our typical approaches to change is to clearly see and accept whatever manifests within us, making a vow of complete, unconditional, inner nonviolence. Complete acceptance means giving up our agenda to expunge or even change negative aspects of ourselves at all. We need to recognize whatever it is as part of who we are – embracing it and taking care of it the same way we take care of our hands or feet. Through an infinite number of causes and conditions, this is the way our precious human life has manifested, like it or not. We experience only suffering and delusion by wishing it to be otherwise.

Any attachment to being different than how you are is ultimately self-centered and is therefore an impediment to spiritual realization and freedom.

We know violence is never a sustainable answer, whether it manifests inwardly or outwardly. Unless a negative aspect of self is causing serious harm to self or others, it’s better we never change than to continue our internal struggle.

To reach full acceptance of our negative aspects, we have to let go of ideas about who we are and who we think we should be. This can be difficult and may even bring some confusion and grief.

The more violence we have inflicted on ourselves in the past – or the more violence that has been inflicted on us by others – the more difficult this self-acceptance can be.

The Surprising Efficacy of Acceptance

We think acceptance means our less-than-helpful aspects will persist or even run wild, controlling our lives. But this is not what happens. Critically, the kind of acceptance we need for lasting change is nothing like resignation or giving in. Whatever we are trying to change is part of us, but it is not all of us. We are also our aspiration to live in a better way.

When we fully accept, embrace, and integrate all aspects of ourselves, we see everything more clearly. If change happens, it happens through love …

Ironically, it is complete acceptance and openness which opens up the possibility for lasting, transformative change. When we are no longer pitting parts of ourselves against other parts, when the light of awareness shines on our whole being, we can see much more clearly what steps we can take toward freedom and peace.

In my own story, I eventually made the vow to forego inner violence even if it meant my busy mind dominated my waking hours for the rest of my life. I was sick of the struggle, and it was getting me nowhere.

This part of myself has great energy. When set to a task, it can’t stop until the task is done. It is instinctive, life-sustaining, and compulsive. All the lectures in the world about emptiness will not convince it that its tasks are not of the utmost importance.

Where are the Buddhist Teachings about Self-Acceptance?

It is this very being, this very body-mind, which is empty of inherent, enduring, autonomous self-nature. Emptiness and boundarylessness are meaningless without something to be empty or boundaryless. The first step toward awakening to emptiness or boundarylessness is full acceptance of your very body, mind, and life.

The Zen teaching of radical nonduality also seems related to profound self-acceptance.

Added 2024-05-30.