So over the past two months,
We've really been exploring the characteristics of self-compassion,
Of self-care.
And we've explored the importance of being relaxed in the body,
Learning to relax into our wholeness,
The whole messiness of our being.
And the self-compassion that I sort of speak about or have been sort of pointing to is really in the spirit of this poem that was written in the 9th century.
It's a Zen poem by Izumi Shikibu.
And he wrote,
Watching the moon at dawn,
Solitary mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
No part left out.
Watching the moon at dawn,
Solitary mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
No part left out.
So in keeping with this theme of knowing ourselves completely,
I want to explore with you the ways in which we grasp for certainty.
I was supporting a woman in this inquiry who first expressed that she was really afraid of people.
She kept herself apart,
She lived alone,
Her work was very solitary.
And when we explored uncertainty and the level of comfort with uncertainty,
She was pretty adamant that she was comfortable with uncertainty.
So as our practice is to take a second look,
I probed a little bit about that.
I challenged her to look again.
Don't we create a sense of certainty in our routines?
And if we have more people in our social circles,
We're in a way living unafraid of others.
Because it gets messy being with other people.
We can't control the environment when we are surrounded by others.
We can't control the certainty of our routine.
And with just that little bit of probing,
She really got to see how actually being comfortable with what she can't control,
Which is other people,
Was an area that she hadn't quite cultivated yet.
So I want to explore this with you.
How we respond to not knowing,
And how really we curate our lives to create a more certain environment.
Perhaps there's some letting go that can happen with this inquiry.
Uncertainty and doubt are our traveling companions.
And they're often used interchangeably,
But they're different in my understanding.
You know,
Everything is always uncertain.
The mystery of our lives,
The magic of living on this blue dot in the universe.
No idea how long we'll be here and when we'll depart.
No idea.
It's all uncertain.
It's very absolute truth,
Right?
And doubt,
Doubt has a flavor,
More like we don't know what to do.
Doubt has the flavor of questioning and of spinning.
There's often confusion.
Sometimes we shut out experience.
And uncertainty,
It manifests differently.
The most common way that we deal with uncertainty is we get very,
Very busy.
Many people I know,
Retired or semi-retired people,
Are some of the busiest people that I know.
Full calendars,
No free moments,
No time to meditate.
And what's so interesting in the Tibetan tradition,
There is a teaching that busyness is the ultimate form of laziness.
And I think there's some truth about that.
I can see that in myself.
It's easier to check things off a list and keep doing than just to be at times,
You know.
It's an avoidance tactic.
It keeps us from the places that most need our attention.
It keeps us from the places that are tender and really the places that are creative.
I know the groundwork of creativity really is to have the time to dream and to let the mind wander.
Have time when there's just space,
When there's not so much structure.
I have several creative pursuits and I hope some of you do as well,
Like art and drawing and music.
These are areas of our life where there's no structure really.
Maybe we structure out the time,
We make the time for it,
But in the practicing of our art or our music or whatever it may be,
It's very unstructured.
Most of the time,
However,
For many of us,
We just leave ourselves and become this busy doing self.
Pemi Chodron wrote an entire book about this subject.
It's called Comfortable with Uncertainty.
It's a beautiful book.
In it,
She says,
Accepting uncertainty is a key aspect of personal growth and spiritual development.
Her emphasis is on embracing uncertainty in order to cultivate openness and curiosity in our lives.
The cultivation is on openness and curiosity.
When you get really honest with yourself,
How open and curious are you really?
Just ask yourself,
How open and curious are you really?
We go around with so much knowledge,
Lifetime of lived experience.
We have Google at our fingertips,
Which has kind of become this authority on just about everything.
But genuine curiosity,
It's a cultivation.
It's like you don't automatically grab the phone and go to Google.
How is it to just to rest and not knowing?
And for some people,
That is really uncomfortable.
Perhaps you've experienced that discomfort in your practice.
And it's just a feeling,
That uncomfortable feeling.
And what we've been learning is really we have the capacity to be with our feelings,
Even the edgy ones.
So the invitation for this time ahead until we meet again,
Is to start to explore where you tighten and contract around uncertainty.
How you construct a more certain life.
Let's get to know it so we can cultivate openness and curiosity,
Comfort in it,
Relaxing in it.
So thank you for this consideration and I welcome your thoughts.
