So by way of introducing today's topic,
I'd like to start with a story from the book,
Comfortable with Uncertainty.
A woman is running from tigers.
She runs and she runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer.
She comes to the edge of a cliff.
She sees a vine there so she climbs down and holds on to it.
Then she looks down and sees that there are tigers below her as well.
At that same time,
She notices a little mouse gnawing away at the vine in which she's clinging.
She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries emerging from a nearby clump of grass.
She looks up and she looks down and she looks at the mouse.
Then she picks a strawberry,
Pops it in her mouth and enjoys it thoroughly.
Tigers above,
Tigers below.
This is the predicament we are in.
We are born and sooner or later we die.
Each moment is just what it is.
Resentment,
Bitterness and holding a grudge prevent us from seeing and hearing and tasting and delighting.
This might be the only moment of our life.
This might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat.
We could feel depressed about this or we could finally appreciate it.
We could delight in the preciousness of every single moment.
Pemi Chodron also says to be fully alive,
Fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
Continually thrown out of the nest.
Think about that.
I think the point,
This points to kind of what her teacher Chokyam Trumpa said.
You know,
The bad news is you're falling through the air and there is nothing to hang on to.
No parachute.
And the good news is there's no ground.
So our meditation practice is about opening and relaxing with whatever is arising.
The uncertainty of that.
The poet Allen Ginsberg used this expression,
The surprised mind.
I like that.
You know,
We're thrown out of the nest.
Surprise.
How are you meeting this?
Unless you are actively practicing meditation,
And it's a part of your daily life,
People generally meet the unexpected and the unplanned with our mammalian brain.
The fight flight freeze response.
Fighting uncertainty manifests itself as taking control.
Controlling all the aspects of your life,
Trying to control other people's aspects and their life.
If you don't like what you're hearing,
And you can't control what you're experiencing,
Then we we flee,
Right?
Sometimes we leave.
There's a fleeing in some way.
Sometimes fleeing looks like just shutting down.
Freezing is another response in the face of uncertainty.
Just kind of like a deer in headlights.
Or we hide,
Like freezing can be a form of hiding.
Like I'm just going to stay in the house where it's safe.
Stay by myself where it's safe.
I love this image of falling.
And there's no ground just falling.
You know,
When I was in my early 20s,
I jumped out of an airplane with a parachute with my my brother.
And at first,
We were just free falling.
It was so wild.
It was very liberating the experience of just falling through the air.
And such a relief when the parachute opened.
The falling was still happening.
But the speed,
The speed of it slowed down.
So we had time in the sky and we drifted.
Time to relax.
I'll never forget that,
That time to relax.
So in our practice,
We've spent some,
Some of our energy focusing on self compassion and relaxing with who we are,
You know,
Opening to all parts of ourselves,
Learning to be comfortable.
And in our wholeness,
The whole messiness of us.
And so much of learning to be comfortable with uncertainty is to allow yourself to open to the fear that we carry.
So many people live and respond to life from fear.
And we don't like to admit it to ourselves.
Like that somehow we've made it wrong to be afraid.
We don't want to be afraid.
It's got a pretty bad rap in our culture being afraid.
You know,
We're a culture where bullies really occupy the news.
Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses.
But I really kind of feel like fear has replaced that being afraid is a form of social control.
And we have so many messages to support that.
So a very,
Very important part of our Dharma practice is to understand fear and be willing not to only understand it,
But to respect it,
That it's part of us.
You know,
Fear.
I don't want to add any shoulds into this practice,
But it's sort of like there should be some respect,
Respecting fear.
It doesn't mean that we give into it that we give it the authority to make decisions in our life.
But respecting fear means that we we take a second look.
There's something in fear that we can learn about ourselves.
When there's fear,
It's a message.
Whenever there's fear,
And maybe there's a lot of fear for you.
It's an indication that something needs attention.
That's it.
Adding wrong and bad to it does not help.
Fear just comes with the territory of being a human being.
And sometimes it's intense.
And sometimes it's just this mild hum that we move through life with.
And it seems to be a predominant feature,
When we are unable to be comfortable with uncertainty,
The falling through our life.
It's like we're grasping at air.
So I want to look at fear with you.
You know,
I really feel like this is an important practice for us to look at together.
The undercurrent of fear is really uncomfortable.
We dislike it.
And we're unwilling to feel it.
And in some way,
Fear is designed,
So we'll dislike it,
And then we'll act right.
But so often,
The dislike has us pushing it away,
And cutting off from it,
Instead of moving towards it.
And the problem with fear,
Or with avoiding fear,
Is that it's still in our body.
You know,
It just knocks on a different door.
It comes out as illness,
You know,
Heart disease,
Cancer,
Depression,
It comes out as control,
Or aggression or anger.
Addiction,
It comes out,
But it comes out sideways.
And so part of the practice of working with fear,
Working with uncertainty,
Really,
Is how can we bring a kind of attention that helps our,
Our fear feel safe,
Our uncertainty,
Because uncertainty is just a manifestation of fear.
How can we bring attention to help fear feel safe?
Bringing an awareness,
Going towards the fear with kind of a kindness.
If a child was afraid,
And you were there as the adult,
The most natural response would be to go towards that child as the safe person.
I feel confident that that's what we would do,
All of us.
And it's the same with us,
We,
We move towards our fear,
As the safe person.
For ourselves,
Doing that for ourselves is actually an act of self compassion.
And it's not an easy thing to do.
But if we can learn to do it,
At our own speed in our own way,
This allows us to go beyond the fear.
We're more comfortable with the sensations of fear in the body.
We learn to accept this fear,
And we are the companion to it.
Our awareness,
Our care is the companion to it.
We can move through life with fear,
But it doesn't limit us.
And in that way,
We're able to respond to uncertainty,
To let go into the fall,
Where there is no ground.
That's one of the benefits that can come when we allow ourselves to let fear be there.
So one of the ways we can begin to work with this with fear is to begin talking about it,
To begin normalizing the fear that we have.
So for the remainder of our time this morning,
Let's have a broad conversation about this fear that we all carry.
Thank you for your attention and consideration.
