10/04/2022
I only recently came across Manoj Dias through his meditation videos on Youtube. His guided meditations has made me want to go deeper and deeper into it.
Learning to be comfortable with not knowing... thank you Manoj Dias
This weekend I reread the Hsin Hsin Ming, the classic Zen poem that speaks of the ‘Trusting mind’. Zen monks refer to this quality as enlightenment, where we let go of the struggle to control things and perfect each moment, instead we can relax and allow ourselves to rest in the uncertainty of it all.
Resting in uncertainty is a challenge for me perhaps for you, too. There's no sense of safety because there is no sense of knowing what is about to happen, this gives rise to anxiety and worry. As Dr Rick Hanson explains; Our brains haven't evolved to make us happy, they've evolved to keep us alive. So we often try to control situations and other people's emotions or simply avoid experiences that challenge, all together. Resonate?
Here is what I've learnt from my practice lately.
—Remembering life has always been unstable and uncertain, believing it and the people that inhabit it to be a steady, predictable force is fantasy. But also leads to inevitable disappointment.
—Feeling into where the discomfort of uncertainty exists within the body. Not trying to make sense of it or even analyse it, simply opening the subtle body to feeling the emotion with compassion and curiosity.
—Trying to make sense of the discomfort prolongs the discomfort. Opening to the somatic experience of uncertainty to the extent we are capable, allows the energy of the emotion to move through our bodies.
—In the words of Suzuki Roshi; "everything changes" The pleasant, unpleasant and everything in between states.
—The more we expose ourself to the discomfort the more resilient we become and the less fear we eventually hold.
As Ani Pema says “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land. To experience each moment as completely new and fresh.”
