I’ve been looking through some old books lately. I imagine it has been 30 years or more since I’ve read The Road Less Traveled (1978). Author M. Scott Pecks starts with the main idea of Buddhism and all of the meditation reading and training I’ve done:

Life is difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no long matters.

I been coming across this idea for years, but I haven’t really accepted it yet. Finding it unexpectedly as the first sentence of Peck’s book made it seem fresh food for thought. But who can really accomplish this acceptance?