Our meditation teacher sometimes intones the acronym 'r-a-i-n.' We are advised, while sitting in meditation (or running about our days), if an emotional storm or difficult mind-state, or set of problematic circumstances should arise - we are invited to recognize, allow, investigate, and non-identify with these phenomena. (I'll leave the 'non-identify' word alone, syntactically awkward as it may be.)
WARNING: Pointless and mildly droll paragraph follows...
I can think of other helpful acronyms: non-identify, allow, investigate, let-go (NAIL); inquire, recognize, allow, non-identify (IRAN); and while the order of IRAN does actually feel more intuitive to me, the acronym is less alluring than RAIN.
END of distraction.
Eckhart Tolle, latter-day purveyor of Buddho-Christo-Sufist insight, in works such as The Power of Now, uses the phrase 'what you accept, you go beyond' (or something like it). The idea is not to passively sit back and accept abhorrent conditions, and do nothing about them. Rather, the pilgrim is instructed to open to the conditions - however beautiful or tragic they may be - just as they present in the moment. To complain that 'it shouldn't be like this' is to invite suffering, and typically does not lead to wise - and possibly corrective - action. Accepting the present to be just as it is, allows us to go beyond it, and even sometimes to act wisely.
Saints and monks through the ages have shown such peace and faith in the face of very grave situations. I read of a Tibetan nun, who, while being tortured, says prayers of loving-kindness for her Chinese captors. Her mouth is taped shut, but still her lips keep moving. Clearly, her life of practice in opening to the present moment - come what may - enables her to recognize the dire situation she faces, and instead of wishing it to be other than it is - other than what it simply and irrevocably is at that moment - proceeds instead directly to the only positive action she knows and is able to accomplish.
In our day to day lives, we are generally spared from such harsh or life-threatening situations. To take a recent commonplace example in my life, I had lost an important piece of jewelry. You see, our wedding was coming up, only days away, and the evening before, Dwan had asked on the phone - tongue mildly in cheek, though past experience gave her question at least some relevance - 'do you still have your ring?' I'd said sure - which was technically true - but in fact I couldn't say just then exactly where it was. Or even approximately. So I looked and looked and looked, till my eyesight and body were exhausted. Brushed my teeth, and dropped into bed.
The next morning, I resumed the search, now more frantic, our nuptial event just one day away. I finally dropped into the recliner, closed my eyes, and a light 'rain' began to fall, almost spontaneously: Recognize the bodily sensations I perceived due to this loss - a sort of weary tightness in the belly, harshness in the jaw, etc. Allow the situation to be as it is, for try as I might to change or resist it, this situation was exactly as it was in that moment. Even my resistance to the situation was just as it was. Investigate the myriad emotions and mind-states which arose - regret, self-recrimination (how stupid of me!), etc. Non-identify, or let go of attachment to these emotions, sensations, and thoughts, which you can imagine is much easier said than done. However, simply opening to such an intention - to see a larger whole in which these stories played themselves out - allowed me to feel just how I was identified with, or attached to, these conditions. And with such recognition came a release, a letting-go, even if only partially. As waves and ocean currents rage with a tropical storm on the surface, deep down the fish swim through waters as calmly as ever.
After this little 'meditation,' I dropped to my knees, and crawled over to a sort of hutch/secretary in my bedroom. I'd already looked in it, so didn't really know what I was doing. I opened the right cabinet door, and pulled out a small drawstring pouch made in Nepal (there are several other such keepsakes in there). I could feel there was something in the pouch, reached in, and pulled out a small black velveteen ring sleeve. Now the warm summer rain felt like elixir.
