Comfortable with Uncertainty (Book review)
// April 25th, 2008 // No Comments » // Glenn
I’ve really enjoyed reading this book “Comfortable with Uncertainty” by Pema Chodron. I see many similarities with Christian teachings here and for those who don’t have a hang-up in comparing other moral teachings with Christian ones, you might also enjoy this book.
Here are some selected passages I copied out…
The Root of Suffering
What keeps us unhappy and stuck in a limited view of reality is our tendency to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek security and avoid groundlessness, to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. This is how we keep ourselves enclosed in a cocoon.
Heaven and Hell
A big, burly samurai comes to a Zen master and says “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.”
The Zen master looks him in the face and says, “Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you? A worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?”
Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword and raises it to cut off the master’s head.
The Zen master says, “That’s hell.”
Instantly, the samurai understands that he has just crated his own hell – black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment. He sees that he was so dep in hell that he was ready to kill someone. Tears fill his eyes as he puts his palms together to bow in gratitude for this insight.
The Zen master says, “That’s heaven.”
Experience Your Life
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 the same time, she notices a little mouse gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries emerging from a nearby clump of grass. She looks up, 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 always 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.
Slogan: “Abandon any hope of fruition”
“Fruition” implies that at some future time you will feel good. One of the most powerful Buddhist teachings is that as long as you are wishing for things to change, they never will. As long as you’re wanting yourself to get better, you won’t. As long as you are oriented toward the future, you can never just relax into what you already have or already are.
One of the deepest habitual patterns that we have is the feeling that the present moment is not good enough. We frequently think back to the past, which maybe was better than now, or perhaps worse. We also think ahead quite a bit to the future, always holding out hope that it will be a little bit better than now. Even if things are going really well now, we usually don’t give ourselves full credit for who we are in the present.
