Seeking certainty.

Before Awakening, what we seek is always the same as everyone else, and that is certainty in life.

We hold a belief in the superficial equation of 'if I do this I will get that.'

Sometimes it works the way we would like and other times not at all, and then everything in between. In other words, certainty does not exist in the conventional world, and so we struggle with life.

We pin our hopes on all the things that ultimately fail us, not because there is something wrong with them, but only that we expect more than they can offer.

So much of our time is spent trying to fix things in life to feel secure, when actually we don't need to fix them at all, we simply need to understand them. The moment we understand the reality of life we are free from the unhappiness that arises from the attachment to our dream states, and the consequent expectations that things will be perfect for us.

To seek happiness, comfort or any kind of certainty or security outside ourselves is to always keep ourselves as a victim, not to the world as we would like it to be, but to the mind itself.

 

By sustained effort and self-discipline 

wise people are able to build themselves an island 

that no flood can sweep away.

(Dhammapada vs. 25)

 

May all beings be happy