To be alive is to be floating in an ocean of insecurity. The 'secret' of peace is to welcome and embrace the impossibility of being human, of being nothing, of being everything, of not knowing. No box can contain an improbable infinite miraculous reality. We are insecure because underneath the apparent ground of the earth and the workings of gravity is groundlessness. In Zen we say there is no handrail.
Our usual insecure thoughts and feelings about self esteem, finances, work, relationships, health, and the state of the world seem to both pale in meaning and find a truer perspective against the background existential insecurity. As Paul Tillich coined, it takes courage to be. Are we willing to peer down into the well? Can we see the water at the bottom? Can we see beneath and through and beyond the water? A Zen teacher might ask, 'What is it?!".
When I walk beneath the star lit sky, peer at the ocean's horizon, feel the pulsation of my beating heart, or enter any of the other infinite dharma gates that offer a precise awareness of being, I find that I can both shake and breathe easy as I embrace some nameless wonder. Returning again and again to Zazen, it seems that the attitude of 'bring on the insecurity' grows a bit with each passing decade.
Chest tightening
Heart beating
Where am I?
Yes to Insecurity
