Zen & Buddhism

Surrendering to What Is

Accepting reality as it is rather than how we wish it were.

Suffering comes from arguing with reality. Surrender doesn't mean giving up but accepting what is while working toward what could be. This is the serenity prayer: accepting what can't be changed, changing what can, wisdom to know the difference.

Written about in

• What Zen says about fear and anxiety

  Accept what is actually the case, which the entry separates from giving up: you still work towards what could be.

• What Zen says about rest

  Suffering, this concept says, comes from arguing with reality. Surrender means accepting what is while still working toward what could be — which keeps it from collapsing into fatalism, though the line between the two is exactly where the difficulty lives.