Structured approach: For those who like a rational, structured approach, Advaita Vedanta provides a beautiful conceptualization of this boundary. See Who Am I?.
Fluid approach: For those who prefer an emotional, devotional, fluid and poetic approach, the same answer may be derived by studying poems, stories and real life situations listed below.
Some of our greatest attachments are towards our own body. A quote from Wikipedia article on St Francis of Assisi that inspires us to accept death and disease:
Robert Frost puts it as follows: 'The best way out is always through!'
Acceptance overlaps with positive thinking, thankfulness and forgiveness.
A difficult thing to accept is the loss of loved ones. The death of one's spouse ranks #1 in the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale which was developed in 1960s to identify circumstances that are most correlated with mental distress. Top 10 Most Stressful Life Events: The Holmes And Rahe Stress Scale is a nice article with details.
Death of one's child is an even more difficult event to handle. See Three Stories of Forgiveness where parents accepted the loss of their child gracefully. These parents went way beyond getting over their personal grief. It may sound strange but they developed compassion for the individuals whose actions had resulted in the death of their children, embracing them and working for their upliftment!
See Mind-Blowing Outdoor Adventures by Disabled and Inspiring Disabled Artists for personal stories and videos of people who overcame their disabilities with elan!
A somewhat comical way of talking about acceptance is: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! :)
Interactions with difficult people are opportunities to practice acceptance.
Couplet by Kabir:
Translation:
Eight Verses by Dalai Lama: Consider people who irritate us and make us angry. Two of the Eight Verses by Dalai Lama teach us that we must revere such individuals as our teachers! They provide us valuable opportunities to improve ourselves.
Compassion for those who killed our loved ones: Three Stories of Forgiveness contains personal stories of parents who lost their children to violence. These parents went way beyond grief recovery. They actually developed compassion for the killers, embracing them and working for their upliftment!
Compassion for those who are physically harming us: When Christ was on the cross, he had compassion for those who had harmed him. He said, "Father, forgive them, because they don't know what they are doing" (see Luke 23:34). Similarly, when Angulimala was being attacked by villagers, he had nothing but compassion for his aggressors. See Angulimala (PDF) (86 pages, large font) for his life story.
A good friend pointed out that 'accepting ourselves as we are' is key :)
The composition has about two dozen couplets (see Meda Ishq Vi Tu). Almost every phrase of this composition has this structure: 'X is You' where X stands for various physical and mental phenomena. Now these statements will make sense if these physical and mental phenomena could be seen in third person, as a 'witness' — meditation helps accomplish this.
The boundary between 'I' and 'the Universe' may be summarized as follows: 'I am nothing; the Universe is everything', where 'everything' refers to all physical and mental phenomena that we get to experience. Developing the skill to see phenomena in third person is a key step towards acceptance. Some kind of meditation technique is necessary for accomplishing this step. Sufi & Bhakti traditions encourage 'Japa' (mantra-based / chanting-based meditation) which I don't understand well. The Buddhists teach breath meditation and Vipassana meditation, which can be used to accomplish the same goals: to see phenomena in third person (awareness) and to accept them as they are (equanimity). Buddhist techniques and terminology are explored under Awareness & Equanimity.
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