A quote of the Dalai Lama’s I read recently stated, “If you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” That’s where Buddhist, or contemplative, detachment comes in. We don’t grumble over the unfairness of there being winners and losers, or of having to face loss and the pain of grief. We accept it as it is, without labeling “good” or “bad”, “positive” or “negative”; without taking a stance called “optimism” or “pessimism”. The experience just IS. That’s it. Period.

When we are able to see it as it is, hard as that might be, we can get what it has to offer in terms of its lessons.

I’ve spoken before of the illustration I’ve used in sermons about “optimism” and “pessimism” and judging a glass of water as being “half full” or half empty”. Again, these are judgments, attachments to a certain way of thinking that is skewed and sees only half of the reality. 
While the optimist and the pessimist are arguing over whether or not the glass is half empty or half full, the realist comes along, picks up the glass, and gratefully drinks the contents.

But, does that mean we have to accept things as they are, doing nothing about them? I don’t believe so. I don’t believe a Buddhist or anyone else would tell us that if our arse is on fire, we are to accept the reality and just learn from the experience. We have every right, reason, and expectation to put the *%$@#* flames out!

If we see injustice and poverty, we don’t simply accept that “that’s life” and life means suffering. We are to engage it and change things in order to relieve the suffering and pain. This is what Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Engaged Buddhism” is all about. This is what results from his Buddhist understanding of “interbeing.”

It’s also the point, after all, behind the teaching of Reinhold Neibuhr, theologian, cultural critic, and author of the Serenity Prayer:

“God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”