Radical Acceptance of Present

 B

This piece, “Full-Moon Mind,” by Shinge Sherry Chayat, circles around a deceptively simple Zen statement from Ummon:

“Every day is a good day.”

Not because every day feels pleasant, successful, or peaceful — but because awakening is not dependent on conditions.

A few core threads run through the essay:

• Awareness over avoidance.
  The author emphasizes that practice is not about eliminating irritation, fear, grief, or anger. It is about becoming intimate with them without being ruled by them. This echoes Pema Chödrön’s phrase “compassionate inquiry.”
• The emptiness of fixed identity.
  Emotions and reactions feel solid, but Zen points to their impermanent, changing nature. Seeing this softens our grip on them.
• Presence as responsibility.
  The “full moon” symbolizes awakened mind, but realization is not escape. After awakening comes responsibility — the bodhisattva vow to remain engaged with suffering and the world as it is.
• Non-separation.
  The refugee, addict, political opponent, and stranger are “not other.” Compassion grows from recognizing interdependence rather than defending a separate self.
• Practice is simple but not easy.
  Sit down. Breathe. Return. Drop judgment. Repeat endlessly. The essay keeps returning to the ordinariness of practice:
  “We just do it.”

One of the strongest tensions in the essay is this paradox:

• Zen invites radical acceptance of the present moment.
• Yet that acceptance is not passivity or indifference.
• Clear seeing becomes the ground for courageous action.

The line from the Diamond Sutra captures this beautifully:

“Past mind cannot be recalled; present mind cannot be held; future mind cannot be grasped.”

So the “goodness” of every day is not emotional positivity. It is completeness — nothing excluded.

The essay ultimately suggests that enlightenment is less a mystical achievement than a way of meeting life:

• fully,
• vulnerably,
• without clinging,
• and with increasing responsibility for others.

The final movement is especially important: realization is not withdrawal into private serenity. It becomes action rooted in intimacy with reality itself:

“And we just take care of business.”

That’s very Zen — ordinary, grounded, unspectacular, and immense at the same time.