The first time I heard one of my teachers say that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, I was completely confused. I considered these two concepts to be interchangeable. I had experienced painful migraines and suffered through bouts of the flu. If I were to write a review for either experience, it would say that I did not enjoy either, or that I would not highly recommend; both would receive a rating of a single star out of five.
Fortunately, my teachers have been both patient and compassionate, showing a willingness to repeat a teaching and to help me develop a deeper understanding. I came to understand that pain is inevitable because pain stems from physical and emotional loss. The suffering piece of the equation came a bit more slowly. But I began to understand the logic of how resistance can make things more difficult. From a cognitive perspective, I could see that if something was beyond my control, raging against it only made things worse.
What I had yet to understand was what I was supposed to do to experience pain without adding on suffering. When others told me that I needed to accept things as they are, I was confused: did this mean not taking painkillers during a migraine? Clearly, I had more to learn.
I needed to integrate the role of acceptance to understand how acceptance would help reduce my suffering. Acceptance meant that sometimes I would have a migraine. Becoming more upset about the migraine would not make it go away. Having anxiety about whether or not a migraine was coming my way would not prevent a migraine. In fact, both of these behaviors added a layer of suffering on top of the physical pain. There was nothing in this acceptance that meant I had to experience the pain without taking pain pills. Acceptance does not equal martyrdom.
Physical pain and illness have been, and continue to be, an excellent training ground for pain versus suffering.
To better explain acceptance, let’s now move away from the migraines I experienced and consider the grief you and I have felt when a loved one has died. First, let’s consider what acceptance is not. Acceptance is not resignation or giving up; it is not finding a way to say the death should have happened or trying to make it okay. Acceptance is not forgetting about someone you loved or trying to return to how things were. Acceptance does not mean you stop healing, and it definitely does not mean that you try to cut off your emotions.
What does it really mean to come to a place of acceptance while grieving? Acceptance means acknowledging reality as it is, not as we wish it to be.
Your loved one has died. This is true. You cannot change this fact.
Acceptance means finally, gently, allowing this truth to be true, rather than exhausting yourself in the futile attempt to undo it.
Think of it this way: imagine you’re standing in the ocean and a large wave is coming toward you. If you resist the wave, if you brace yourself and fight it, you’ll be thrown around violently. But if you relax into it, if you accept that the wave is coming and let it move through you, it passes with far less damage. This is acceptance, not passive weakness. It’s intelligent adaptation to reality. It’s not necessarily easy, so be gentle with yourself.
One important thing to understand: acceptance is not a destination you reach once and then stay there. It’s not linear. Some days you’ll feel accepting of your loved one’s death. Other days, you’ll wake up and it will feel fresh all over again, and you’ll find yourself fighting reality once more.
This is completely normal. Grief is not a straight line upward. It spirals, with moments of acceptance and moments of renewed shock and denial. The goal is not to achieve perfect acceptance. The goal is to gradually, over time, spend more moments in acceptance and fewer in resistance. Each time you choose acceptance, you strengthen that neural pathway.
Each time you say, “This is true, and I can bear it,” you prove to yourself that you can bear it.
While working with acceptance around the death of my family members, I found using affirmations or mantras to be useful. On more than one occasion, reminding myself that “I was in the best possible position to handle my loss” helped me to stave off feelings of panic. Repeating, “I am not the one who died,” gave me the strength to participate more fully in life.
Here are some other phrases that might prove useful:
“My loved one has died. This is true.”
“I cannot change the past. I can only accept it.”
“This grief is hard, and I can bear it.”
“I accept what is, even though I wish it were different.”
“My resistance doesn’t change reality. Acceptance brings me peace.”
Acceptance is what helped me to live with pain and taught me my role in my own suffering
See more.
Margaret Meloni: Death Dhamma
The Death Dhamma Podcast (Margaret Meloni)
Related features from BDG
The Weight of Grief: Finding Light in the Darkness
Mockery and Mastery: The Bodhisattva’s Lessons on Emotional Balance
Together in Grief: A Buddhist Guide to Offering and Asking for Support in Times of Loss
Related videos from BDG
The Wisdom of Impermanence Podcast
The Death Dhamma Podcast Season 1
The Death Dhamma Podcast Season 2
The Death Dhamma Podcast Season 3
The Death Dhamma Podcast Season 4
The Death Dhamma Podcast Season 5
