"If you are going to do something, give yourself completely to whatever it is and stick with it steadily."
--The Dhammapada, Chapter 22

The Zen shorthand for this is "leaning into it," which means not running away from our lives.

The First Noble Truth that Shakyamuni Buddha taught was that all life contains suffering. Period. And as soon as we accept this fact -- really accept it -- we stop secretly thinking that if only we could be stronger or wealthier or more englightened, we wouldn't have to deal with the things we don't want to deal with.

The Four Noble Truths are usually glossed as: Life contains suffering; we suffer because we grasp and crave; because suffering has a root, it can be uprooted; and the Noble Eightfold Path is the way to uproot it. So I think in our minds, when we hear this, we immediately jump to this idea that if we just practice enough, we won't have to suffer, right? Actually, what we think is we won't even have to deal with difficulties, because we'll be so enlightened we'll just sort of float above them or something.

But if you look at the early sutras, you see that at no point was the Buddha ever free and clear of having to deal with difficulty. His monks would fight; his own cousin tried to kill him; he actually died when he ate some bad pork. The First Noble Truth over and over.

So the Eightfold Path -- our practice -- is not just to get rid of suffering and be done with it. Yeah, it's true that built into the practice is a loosening of our attachments and aversions, which very directly translates as less suffering. But it's also true that our practice is for dealing skillfully with difficulty and suffering as they arise in our lives -- not for simply getting past them or doing away with them, but for allowing us to lean into whatever it is that presents itself in our lives with as much grace as we can muster.

If you plant a tree in perfect black topsoil, what happens? Seems like the best case scenario, doesn't it? If planting a tree in soil will cause it to grow, planting it in perfect soil will really support it, huh? But actually, dig a hole and plant a tree in it with perfect topsoil, and as the tree grows and the roots branch out, when they reach the edge of that topsoil, they'll circle back around. Instead of spreading out, this tree's roots just circle back around and around into the topsoil. And because of this, the tree becomes very weak, because it never roots properly.

We are just like this tree when we always seek the "best," most comfortable scenario. And one way to help us get over this tendency is to accept that life contains suffering. This doesn't mean we wallow in it or become martyrs or stay in abusive relationships or become little fatalists. This means that we accept reality, and in so doing, we become far better equipped to deal with it skillfuly.