Saturday, February 25, 2012

Developing tolerance for uncertainty

Knowledge is nice. It gives us a sense of control. It gives us a sense of having our fingers on the pulse of reality.
The world is constantly changing. Riding this constantly changing world is like a cowboy that is riding a bucking bull. The bull is trying to throw the cowboy off. And the cowboy is trying to hold on with everything he has. The world, like the bull, is unpredictable. It is hard to know from moment to moment which way it's going to buck. We try to hold on the best way we can. Whether it's the stock markets or the political theater, few has a grip on both. This is not something that we want to believe. We want to believe that someone out there must know what's going on.
We crave for certainty. We have an aversion to uncertainty. Different people have different levels of tolerance for uncertainty. Different people have different abilities to make sense of uncertainty. Different people have different levels of comfort with external and internal chaos.

Inner chaos can be intellectual and emotional. External chaos can be in the form of clutter and uncleanliness. Different people have different levels of tolerance for this chaos.  

The world is constantly changing. This means that everything about the world and it's ways can not always be known. We have to develop a tolerance for uncertainty.

How do we stay grounded in inner knowledge, aware and in equilibrium, despite there being chaos all around us? This is what Vipassana promises to teach.

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