Sitting with Uncertainty

There’s a book by Pema Chodron titled Comfortable with Uncertainty that I’ve had on my shelf for ages. In a certain way I’ve had uncertainty on my shelf for ages. I know it’s beside the point, but I always, always mis-read the title as Uncomfortable with Uncertainty. As longtime readers of this blog know, I’m a writer who works part-time at the library, and my partner is an artist. We’ve been together for 30 years, and the one thing I feel I’m a bit of an expert on is living with uncertainty. (Granted not on the scale of a pandemic). We have pretty much always felt as though the rug was going to be pulled out from under us. I can’t think of a single minute in my life when I wasn’t afraid to some degree that this rug maneuver would happen. The trick has been to minimize it. Am I comfortable with uncertainty? We certainly are old friends.

And that’s where we are right now isn’t it? In this giant wave of ongoing uncertainty. Yes, we can gather all the facts, and listen to the experts. We can be well-informed. But we still don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next. (Please take a deep breath here). There’s no way around it, the next while is going to be difficult. So let’s try to minimize our feelings of uncertainty, knowing that we’re just going to have to find ways to live with it.

To that end, I offer some quotations from Pema’s book.

“As long as we believe that there is something that will permanently satisfy our hunger for security, suffering is inevitable.” 

“In order to be gentle and create an atmosphere of compassion for yourself, it’s necessary to stop talking to yourself about how wrong everything is — or how right everything is, for that matter.” 

Maybe the most important instruction has to do with breathing:

“Tonglen practice has four stages: Rest your mind for a second or two in a state of openness or stillness. This is called flashing absolute bodhichitta, or suddenly opening to the basic spaciousness and clarity of the awakened heart. Work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark, and heavy—a sense of claustrophobia—and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light—a sense of freshness. Breathe in through all the pores of your body and radiate out completely, through all the pores of your body. Do this until your visualization feels synchronized with your in and out-breaths. Now contemplate any painful situation that’s real to you. For example, you can breathe in the hot, dark, constricted feeling of sadness that you feel, and breathe out a light, cool sense of joy or space or whatever might provide relief. Widen the circle of compassion by connecting with all those who feel this kind of pain, and extending the wish to help everyone.” 

One of my favourite passages in the book though, is this one:

“When you wake up in the morning and out of nowhere comes the heartache of alienation and loneliness, could you use that as a golden opportunity? Rather than persecuting yourself or feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, right there in the moment of sadness and longing, could you relax and touch the limitless space of the human heart?” 

And I just wonder if all of those feelings of uncertainty and fear and loneliness could be thought of or at least used as a golden opportunity? Instead of pushing them away, what can we learn from them?

Well, honestly, I’m a bit in awe of all the wonderful things people are sharing on social media. I’m not ignoring the other stuff, but the pockets of joy are contagious and happy-making.

This is the way things are right now. Scary, weird, uncertain. What if we just wrote all of it down in a notebook, all the feelings we have, our observations about this strange time. What will the details tell us later?

Also, please breathe.

Let your calm become contagious, too. Remember how resilient human beings can be, how compassionate, and innovative, and inspiring. Look to your friends, the artists, the writers, the poets, the musicians, the filmmakers. Let’s keep breathing together.