To accept the past as it has been without harboring resentment. To move on from regret and the things that didn’t go exactly our way. Shifting from the old narrative to a new framework. We may desire these things and not know how to achieve them. Desiring creates a certain disappointment, like pining for an unavailable lover.
But every beginning starts with a hunger, a thirst, and each moment makes available the opportunity to begin again. With our thought, speech, action. Each time we encounter difficulty with another we struggle, but nothing is fixed, nothing is permanent. Anger we feel today may be lifted from our heart tomorrow. The same is true for sadness, joy, or any other emotion. It doesn’t make the feeling any less true; this is simply the nature of things.
Knowing impermanence, we have no reason to become overly identified with any one state of mind. We do so only because this is habit, and this is how we see people all around us behaving. In fact, when we don’t react others may think we’re strange, naïve, dull.
When we devote ourselves to staying present, on a path of spiritual awakening, we use our obstacles wisely. We understand that we can transcend difficulty, and that we’re equipped with the resources necessary to do so. Making peace with all things — present and future — naturally becomes part of our healing process.