What Every Wisdom Tradition Agrees On (And Why We Ignore It)
The Art of Accepting What Is
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God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
—The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr
Most of us are at war with reality. We just don’t know it yet.
Niebuhr's brief prayer has long struck me as a near perfect encapsulation of one of the most critical areas of life’s work. In a tweet length musing, he captures both the enormous challenge, and opportunity, of gaining that elusive state of being called peace of mind.
It’s that first clause that’s the kicker. Though I actively work on it, in surveying the landscape of my inner world, I can’t help but notice my instinctual vehemence to change stuff. If I’m ruffled by something someone has said I often strategize ways of “educating” the person in front of me (either directly or covertly). If the developments in the news are “bad” I feel an urge to address it somehow but am often at a loss as to what exactly that might be. And God forbid there’s a health issue involving someone I really care about; then solvable or not I become a gladiator of “action.”
True enough, there are many things that do appear changeable and it seems more than reasonable to give it your utmost when it’s something important. But as you may have noticed in yourself or from others that even extreme effort does not guarantee the result that you want. What then? Is it better to rail against the futility a la Dylan Thomas’s exhortation to “Rage against the dying of the light?” In other words, should you lean into the “pissed off” or, should you figure out how to be genuinely contented in your unhoped for outcome?
In thinking about this I find myself drawn to the biggest hit single off of Stephen Stills’s eponymous solo album “Love the One You’re With.” He sets up the issue simply enough:
If you’re down and confused. And you don’t remember who you’re talkin’ to. Concentration slip away. Because your baby is so far away
Right, so it’s natural to be down and confused when the person you want or need is far away. Maybe this person has ghosted Stephen, maybe she’s dead, or maybe she’s just a transient hippie, who knows? It’s awful to miss someone. Mr. Thomas would look at this situation and encourage Mr. Stills to “Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Take the pain Stephen! That’s where the meaning is (and perhaps it is) but Stills took a different approach:
Well, there’s a rose in a fisted glove. And the eagle flies with the dove. And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey Love the one you’re with
“Look at the silver linings Dylan” I hear him saying. Each crummy situation has a great opportunity. It’s so simple it’s genius. If you can’t be with the one you love (for whatever reason) love the one you’re with. This is Niebuhr clause one to a t. This is the seed of serenity. Whether it’s a person or a circumstance, why not? So you didn’t want it like this; so what? Why not try loving it?
I suspect that part of the reason is that it’s much easier to rage than to love. There’s a certain security in emotional battle whereas serene acceptance requires a good deal of courage. Maybe that’s why it’s so rare.
Anyone who takes the time to explore the landscape of the mind will likely discover that there are a few things you hold so habitually tightly that to unclench from them might feel excruciating—an abusive parent, a romantic betrayal, a shattered dream—why should I let it go? How could I possibly forgive? I’d be lying if I said I don’t get it, I do. But more and more I am experiencing the true weight; the real world consequences of gripping things so hard. Not going gently into that good night might mean that you go there harder and faster than you think.
At the core of every wisdom tradition is the spiritual technology of non-attachment. The Buddhists call clinging upadana — the root of suffering. The Stoics practiced amor fati, the love of fate, embracing whatever comes as exactly what was needed. In Jewish thought, bitachon — deep trust in God’s providence — is the antidote to the anxiety of needing outcomes to go our way. It’s there not because it opiates an otherwise immiserating reality but because it illuminates the most fruitful ways of operating in a system where gain and loss are a feature and not a bug.
There are a few things that are really worth being attached to; family, love, justice, meaning, transcendence. We should strive to make changes that promote all of them. There are also many things that are not worth attaching to. Both categories are largely independent of our influence.
May we all have the wisdom to know the difference.
Q: Is there something you’ve been raging against that might be transformed by simply choosing to love it instead?
Hi Adam, great column.
I'm not sure what the term is in the Jewish mystical tradition, but I'll try to use simple language.
I've found that almost universally, people get confused about the idea of attachment and non-attachment.
Let's use the words "pure Spirit" + mind, life and body. A rather simplistic spiritual psychology but enough for now.
The Spirit IS ALWAYS non-attached. It is IMPOSSIBLE for the mind, life and/or body to be non-attached by their own effort.
What people often do (probably throughout the ages but especially in modern times) is they "try" to be non attached within the tiny little sphere of their mind, life and body.
Buddhist psychotherapist John Welwood coined the now famous term "spiritual bypassing" for this. They become oddly detached, disconnected from emotions and somatic experience. Then, one day realizing how unbalanced they've become, rather than reconsidering their own mistake, they begin to attack the contemplative traditions, declaring them patriarchal, or psychologically and sociologically uninformed, and finally you have meditation teachers essentially saying, "if you're not up on teh rooftops at all hours of the day or night shouting about abuse in spiritual communities and teh evils of the world, you're not really "spiritual.'
And the most amusing thing about all this is, through all this mishegas, their deepest Spirit remains non attached - that is, non attached to the nonsense of the blinded mind, life and body AND "attached" to She (Him, Her, It, whichever you prefer) just as it has been for all eternity (timelessly!).
The Serenity Prayer saved me during the most difficult time of my life. It helped me to reorient to the pain I was experiencing. Dr. Gordon Neufeld offers us a contemporary version that he calls The Traffic Circle (model of frustration) in which he illustrates the importance of frustration as a feeling that moves us. Frustration drives change (the courage to change the things we can--this is the first off ramp when frustration enters the system. We'll attempt to change the circumstance unless futility blocks this exit), human adaptation (the futility lands, we grieve what we do not get, we accept what we cannot change and "get bigger" than the problem), but if we're too defended against futility and grief, there's only one off ramp left: attacking energy; agression; blame. These are the three off ramps out of the experience of frustration--which must find a way out of the system (our bodies.) Neufeld's work is in the science of attachment. He studies what moves us to behave in the ways we do through the lens of attachment. It can be very confusing to talk with the families I work with about attachment (Attachment Theory where healthy attachment is necessary for our survival) and non-attachment (in the spiritual sense, letting go of attachment to outcome.) Both important.
Thanks for another great article!