Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
Tara BrachRead
The Buddha never intended to make desire itself the problem. When he said craving causes suffering, he was referring not to our natural inclination as living beings to have wants and needs, but to our habit of clinging to experience that must, by nature, pass away.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Desire is not inherently bad, but the attachment to fleeting experiences and cravings leads to suffering.
The quote highlights that the Buddha's teachings on desire are often misunderstood. It emphasizes that while having desires and needs is natural, suffering arises from our tendency to cling to experiences that are impermanent. This suggests that recognizing the transient nature of life can help us manage our desires in a healthier way.
Themes
DesireSufferingAttachmentCravingImpermanence
In practice
Example use cases
In a meditation group discussing the nature of suffering.
More from Tara Brach
All quotes →Clearly recognizing what is happening inside us, and regarding what we see with an open, kind and loving heart, is what I call Radical Acceptance. If we are holding back from any part of our experience, if our heart shuts out any part of who we are and what we feel, we are fueling the fears and feelings of separation that sustain the trance of unworthiness. Radical Acceptance directly dismantles the very foundations of this trance.
Tara BrachRead
Buddhist practices offer a way of saying, 'Hey, come back over here, reconnect.' The only way that you'll actually wake up and have some freedom is if you have the capacity and courage to stay with the vulnerability and the discomfort.
Tara BrachRead
We, like the Mother of the World, become the compassionate presence that can hold, with tenderness, the rising and passing waves of suffering.
Tara BrachRead
There is so much division in this world. So what is really the path of healing? It can begin in this moment, by embracing the life that's here.
Tara BrachRead
We wait for things to be different in order to feel okay with life. As long as we keep attaching our happiness to the external events of our lives, which are ever changing, we’ll always be left waiting for it.
Tara BrachRead
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