The broken roof and acceptance

A Japanese story goes like this:

There were two monks who lived together just outside the village. Every day they used go around the village to collect food from the villagers. Once in the rainy season when they were out for collecting food, a storm came. When they returned to their hut in the evening they found that the storm has blown away the roof of their hut.

One monk got angry on the God and said that we only had this small hut and you brought the storm and destroyed the roof, now how are we going to stay here.

The other monk thanked God by saying that at least you saved the walls of the hut, the roof already needed repair but we were postponing it, now we will make a stronger roof.

That night when they lay inside the hut, the first monk shivering from the cold kept cursing the long gone storm. The second monk looking at the millions of twinkling stars through the broken roof thanked God again for giving such a nice view from inside the hut.

The end of the story.

From the story we can make out a major difference in the attitude of both the monks. It is that of non acceptance and acceptance of the situation.

Whereas the first monk is not accepting the situation which is causing him pain and suffering, the second monk has accepted the situation and therefore seeing the positive side of it.

In our life also we find it difficult to accept the situation as it is. For a bad situation non acceptance is acute among us. For a good situation the acceptance is whole hearted. But until we face bad situation we do not develop the resilience. The non acceptance and acceptance is the difference between suffering and pain.

Pain is something which we are bound to have in our life whether we want it or not. But to convert it to suffering is completely in our hands. Pain helps in developing the resilience to face it and take remedial action. But when we get bowed down by pain and let it take over our emotions we convert it to suffering. On the threshold between pain and suffering stands acceptance. When we accept it, it stays as pain and when we do not accept it, it changes to suffering. When we are moving in the zone of suffering we are creating only negative thoughts and emotions.

In our working life we may get bypassed for a promotion or a pay raise by someone who is undeserving. It surely causes pain to us and more often than not we stretch it to suffering and crib about it to our colleagues. Accepting doesn’t mean liking the wrong or the injustice that happened, it means giving space for it within yourself as you cannot change it at that moment of time.

Acceptance does not come automatically as the emotions play an important role in it. It has to be consciously practiced until we develop the habit of acceptance in us. We have to actively bend our mind to accept something and retrieve it from the turmoil of emotions, or else the emotions will drag it to the level of suffering. It is natural to have a tug of war between the feeling of resistance and the feeling of acceptance in the mind, and in such situation the intellect has to give the final pull towards acceptance.

Acceptance of a bad situation can be a jump starter for a positive thought and effort process. It can be an instrument of change both within us and the incident. Once we have stopped the pain at the barrier of acceptance then the most likely reaction is a positive effort to make good of the situation. We may think of approaching the boss with facts and figures to re assess the case, we may try for a switch of job in a higher grade or we may perform better for the next promotion and pay raise. But when it spills over to suffering our thought process will invariably be looking for ways and means to lay down that employee in front of the boss in every possible occasion or back biting about that person to other colleagues.

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we accept it forever, but it makes us change our focus from the present to the future. It gives us the push to be more focused in the future so that the opportunity is not lost again. Whereas suffering keeps us bound to the present and for a long haul.

The normal reaction under bad situation is to shift the blame on others. But it actually does not serve any purpose. It gives a temporary feeling of false satisfaction that I am not responsible for it. But as the consequences fall on us and not on others so the ultimately it causes more suffering only.

When we inculcate the habit of acceptance of change then life becomes a journey of joy and happiness. Then no amount of bad experience can deviate us from the chosen path because we are mentally prepared to handle it. We are now more likely to control our feeling of attachment with anything which might change one day and become a cause of pain. Now we are better prepared to handle our work and personal issues, with an expansiveness and understanding attitude.