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The first time I meditated on death, I felt my soul was torn apart.

I couldn’t think straight or resist my messy emotions. Imagining a loved one dying had put me in a messed up mental state that lingered for days.

The fact is I couldn’t accept my present moment. I was in a 10-day Buddhist course that was supposed to teach me all about acceptance and surrender. But there I was, sitting in the middle of a Gompa in India crying my eyes out.

My present moment was not pleasant at all. I wanted to run away from it and stop the ugly visualisations that kept occurring in my head. It was hard, and sadly, we don’t like moments that are packed with grief, frustration, or disappointment.

That day I didn’t know how to befriend my present moment that was charged with sadness. Even though I still experience unpleasant moments nearly every day, I’m not the same person I was before. Now I understand that life is a combination of good and bad; I can’t embrace one side and reject the other.

In the past I only wanted joyful experiences. That’s why I couldn’t tolerate the idea of death, and I know I’m not the only one.

It’s hard to accept moments that fill us with despair. It’s hard to surrender, to let go, to just be. It’s hard to flow with life, regardless of what it may bring. But if we do, we can overcome all life’s challenges with ease and comfort.

Acceptance isn’t passiveness, idleness, or avoidance. When we live in acceptance, we live in awareness. We live in a space where we know what to change, what to keep, what to relinquish. We live in a space with infinite possibilities because we won’t be attached to a single mindset or outcome.

Eckhart Tolle describes acceptance in a beautiful way that is easy to grasp. His words are simple yet so powerful.

If, like me, you have always struggled with the concept of acceptance and surrender, you might need to give these 14 quotes a read:

1. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have.”

2. “When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.”

3. “On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consist of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not this moment? This one moment, now, is the only thing you can never escape from. The one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens. No matter how much your life changes. One thing is certain. It’s always now. Since there is no escape from the now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it.”

4. “Always say yes to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now?”

5. “You don’t have to wait for something ‘meaningful’ to come into your life so that you can finally enjoy what you do. There is more meaning in joy than you will ever need.”

6. “As you become present and thereby total in what you do, your actions become charged with spiritual power.”

7. “Surrender is surrender to this moment, not to a story through which you interpret this moment and then try to resign yourself to it. Can you accept the isness of this moment and not confuse it with a story the mind has created around it?”

8. “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”

9. “Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.”

10. “Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.”

11. “Through allowing, you become what you are; vast, spacious. You become whole.”

12. “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly.”

13. “You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the body as an emotion, and of this you can become aware.”

14. “It may look as if the situation is creating the suffering, but ultimately this is not so—your resistance is.”

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