There's a beautiful title of one of Nietzsche's sections, he says, how one becomes what one is. And for me this is how one owns and accepts every part of their life. In the four quartets TS Eliot famously wrote, We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. There's that childlike quality when a child has a sense of wonder before all the fears set in and all the trauma conditions us and we want to get back to that place of authenticity. What do we need to learn in order to show up authentically, as opposed to being bundles of reactions waiting for stimuli? There's a famous quote by Suzuki Roshi who says, You're perfect and there's room for improvement.

So That perfect part of you is whatever part of you was watching your thoughts, your higher power, your higher self, God Moksha, anything like that. And then on top of that, your thoughts, those are parts of your egos or your mind and they were built to protect you. And the way they do that a lot of times is by creating grievance stories by creating would have could have should have did it by wishing things were differently in the past. But what I like to do in my presentations is I ask everyone to raise their hands and I say okay, on the count of three, I'd like you to clap last Thursday. Ready? One to clap last Thursday cop last Wednesday.

Clap this morning. You can't change the past to what good does it do complaining about it? At car totally says you either accept your life or change it. Any other position is insane. I'm going to give you a new definition have forgiveness to try on and just see if this resonates with you. Forgiveness is not condoning someone else's behavior.

Forgiveness is releasing your right to resent something happens. But the only thing that exists about the past is your story. The past is dead and gone. And what we're trying to do and learn through the tools of meditation and yoga is to be present, to be here now, and to just let those resentments go because resentment is like poking yourself in the eye and waiting for the other person to go blind. Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else that gets sick. You're only hurting yourself when you don't accept your entire life.

When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern come to Hamlet, he tells them there is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so but for me, it's Miles Davis. To put it best when he said, it is what it is. So what we need to learn is to release the judgments that our minds create. JACK kornfield says forgiveness means giving up all hope of having a better path. There was a car accident on January 4 1985. And I was very badly hurt.

My face was blown off my head and my fever was shattered into hundreds of pieces. Normally, your femoral artery is pierced and you bleed out in 50 seconds, but I live and after two years of surgeries, I kind of set off on this path that I didn't know I was going out of time and I was just searching for the meaning of life. for 25 years after that car accident, there was a period of time when people asked me, How did you get scar on your face? I would say, I was almost killed in a car accident. And I took a course. And it was basically one of those transformational, you know, workshops that I make fun and I say are mandatory when you come to Los Angeles, those very, you know, self improvement type things, and you have to recount the story of your life.

And so, at that point in time, you know, started the story of my life. I was almost killed in a car accident, and then you had a partner and the person basically deconstructed it. So I started the story of my life. I was almost killed in a car accident and my partner goes, No, you are I started gonna go. I was almost killed on a car accident. my femur was shattered facial bone off my head.

They didn't notify my parents on the next day, because no you weren't. And so I started with and I say, Listen, you know, trust me like I was almost killed in a car accident car accident. He goes, No, you weren't. You were in a car accident. Everything else you added. I was in the passenger seat and there was a guy in the backseat and the driver of the car.

And in January of 2014, I got this Facebook friend request. I saw the name and I recognized that as the guy in the backseat by having spoken to and 29 years. I asked Mike, if you'd be open to having a conversation to help me put some of the pieces together. From the week of my eyes. I don't recall. And he said yes.

And it was Saturday morning. And I called him up. And he told me about his life. For the past 29 years, he had married his college sweetheart, and had two kids and he'd become mayor of his town in New Jersey. And he had just adopted two Chinese kids. And I told him about my life and the travels around the world and films I've worked on and things like that.

And at the end of the conversation, he said, you know, it's always bothered me, that we fought not to be in the death seat, and I won. And I always have this voice in my head. That said, it could have been made, you know, that had to go through the two years of surgery. So, I hung up the phone, and I was riding my vest, down Colorado. I pulled Over, and I called my back. And I said, Thank you The conversation we had this morning.

And there was one part of it. That didn't really resonate with me. So I need to say something to you might be saying it more for me than for you. But I need to tell you that it couldn't have been you. It was supposed to be me. I've been traveling around the world teaching mindfulness and radical acceptance, the tower abroad and owning your life and teaching people that our minds were built to create what could have showed it didn't and all these resentments, and at that point in time, after 29 years, I was ready To say, you know, I'm supposed to have these scars on my face, you know, I'm supposed to have this discomfort in my leg.

And until everybody owns every moment of their life instead of what their mind is built to do, which says, Oh, I would have been happier if I went to Yale, or I would have been happier by married this other person, and I would have been happier if I won the lottery. Those things didn't happen, right? So you have to accept what is but I do know that walking through the fire means embracing every aspect of your life. And until you do that, you're creating your own suffering. Pain does not cause suffering. It's our intolerance of pain that causes suffering.

When his holiness is asked, Who is your greatest teacher? Everyone expects him to say the Buddha and what does he say? The Chinese who killed 2 million of his people, that's his greatest teacher. So for me, radical acceptance is understanding that everything that happens is for your growth for your benefit. The glass is either half full or half empty. It's all about perception.

So you can't. This is Rick Hansen. And he says, You can't pull all the weeds in the garden, but you can plant flowers. So you should know that your mind was built to create what it could have should have didn't, and that those now show up in your life as resentments and resentment is like poking yourself in the eye and waiting for the other person to go on. You know, you're only causing your own suffering by not accepting everything in your life. It's very unpalatable to think that one is too close to Trump, but it's something One at a time.

As with me driving my little scooter down the street, I just was like I just was like, This is what I have to do, I have to own my life. For our fourth meditation, we're going to try to eliminate some of those resentments that our mind creates by engendering acceptance. And then we're going to release those points of non acceptance that our mind creates. So I'd like you to create the frame sit up straight, spine is erect. Shoulders are over the hips. The chin is level.

The jaw is clenched. release any tension from the forehead. Close the eyes for the next few minutes Like to inhale acceptance. Exhale non acceptance. Inhale acceptance. Exhale resentments, your mind was built to create gently bring our attention back into the room